


Sometimes.

by wekingsandprettythings



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2012 Dan Howell, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Face-Fucking, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Depression, mentions of cheating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 03:35:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekingsandprettythings/pseuds/wekingsandprettythings
Summary: growing isn't just physical. there are a lot of aspects to consider when deciding who you want to be and where your life is heading. it takes time, experiences and sometimes someone to give you an ultimatum.a series of events following 2012 to present Dan and Phil working through their relationship, the ups and downs, and Dan's depression.





	1. 2012: intro

**Author's Note:**

> this fic will be my take on the history of dan and phil from 2012 to present. it's not fact, i dont know anything about what happened. this is just something i thought of.

The train seat was hard. Thousands of butts had destroyed the once soft cushion, making uncomfortable for the 3 hour journey home he was taking. The windows were scratched and half fogged up. His one headphone wasn’t as loud as the other so his music wasn’t drowning out the sound of the baby crying on the other side of the car. All together, he was having the worst fucking time. 

He wasn’t heading home. Technically he was raised there, and it was a house so therefor it could be considered ‘home’, but it wasn’t his home. His home for the last 4 years had been with Phil. Home was soft laughter, muse in the background, curry dinners, green and blue checkered sheets and more love than he ever knew. 

His mum offered to drive up and pack her car with his things, he declined. He filled 4 suitcases and a few backpacks with his clothes and posters, he took the handful of dvd’s and games he knew were his and mailed a box of other shit he wouldn’t need for a while back to his parents place. He donated the rest. He didn’t want to remember. 

The first time he sat on a train, he really thought his life would change. 

It wasn’t like Phil completely left him and never talked to him again. They were still friends, they lived in the same apartment for months after the official split. They’d still talk to each other in the kitchen as they made dinner together, they’d lie in Phil’s bed facing each other at 3 in the morning not talking cause there was nothing to say anymore, they would watch movies at night and somehow Dan would end up cuddled into Phil’s chest. They were separated, but together. 

He loved Phil so much, much more than he thought was possible. He would always love him, but it wasn’t enough and it didn’t make sense to him. He loved Phil, too much and not enough at the same time. He loved him enough to want to spend the rest of his life by his side but not enough to tell the world about it. And so when it came down to an ultimatum he chose to love Phil from afar. 

Phil: hope you make it home safe.

He read it and re read it about a million times. It was going to hurt, he didn’t know how to live without Phil, but he was getting to a point where he didn’t know how to live with him either. He didn’t know how to tell his family and friends that they were nothing more than two dudes who enjoyed each others company and still slipping into Phil’s bed at night to make love. 

Dan: it’s not home and you know that.

Phil: you don’t get to do this.

Dan: what? I’m not allowed to be hurt? 

Phil: you don’t get to make me feel like the bad guy.

He was right but Dan’s head was far more dark and twisty than it had ever been to let him be right. He just wanted to love Dan out in the open, he just wanted to tell people they were together, he wanted to wear Dan on his arm and scream from rooftops that he was the one who got to love Dan Howell. That’s how he explained it at least. 

Dan: you’re not the bad guy. we both fucking know that, but i’m still sad. 

Phil: we broke up, of course you’re sad.

Dan: almost a year ago.

Phil read it. The dots popped up and went away every so often. 

Phil: i’m going to love you in secret till the day i die regardless. It was either i dealt with it or this. You leaving me while i will most likely love you forever, you’ve set my standard of love too high. You were it for me. 

Phil: You’re still it for me. 

Phil: if you came back right now i would forget the last year and i’d still love you forever but at least you’d be here.

He couldn’t fucking believe him. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath before he could reply. 

Dan: if i come back, and in another year you want to tell everyone again and i get mad again are you going to force me out again?

Phil: i never did that.

Dan: really?

Dan: cause hearing “i need to not be near you, i can’t fall out of love with you.” translates to “please move out.”

Phil: how the fuck do you think i was feeling Dan?

He swore. That’s when Dan knew he was heated, Phil only swore when something really hurt him. The time he was stalked, he came home and swore almost every other word. The time he had his credit card stolen and £300 was used by someone else, he was bright red with the word “fuck” settled above his head in smoke like in the cartoons. This was going to be just as bad. 

Phil: i can’t imagine you were happy coming into my fucking room at night to talk and somehow we’d fucking end up having sex and you’d fall asleep in my arms while i fucking cried the second i knew you were asleep. You don’t know what it’s like to love you so fucking much while you don’t love yourself enough to let me. 

His stomach tuned. He wanted to throw up knowing Phil was hurting that bad. That he had hurt him that bad. He was the love of his life, he probably would be forever. The sex did hurt him, his emotions were wild, he didn’t understand how making love and appreciating someone so delicately could hurt them both so much. But it did. 

Dan: i don’t know how to reply to that. 

Phil: come home and let me talk to you in person. 

Dan: if i come home, nothing will change.

Phil: you don’t know that. We can go see someone. 

Or he could go see someone alone. He’d been wanting to. He knew something was wrong, not only was he sad all the time from Phil but life in general had been a bit more pointless for him. He always wanted to die. Well, not always, sometimes. 

Dan: what if i saw someone alone. What if we took this time that i’m at my parents to grow a bit. I’ll see someone and i can work out what the fuck is happening in my head. Of course we’ll still see each other at work when i come to London and we can still text and Skype but i need to grow a bit alone. 

Phil: or 

Phil: you come back. I’ll buy your ticket home and carry every single suitcase back home. We can make another rules page like we did in 2010. No sex, you go to therapy, we only talk like friends for a while till we’re okay again. 

He was only impulsive when it came to Phil. Everything else in his life was over contemplated. He couldn’t even pick his shirt in the morning without overthinking the aspects of the day that would make it a bad choice. But Phil, he brought out a side of him that just said fuck it. 

Dan: the next train arrives at the station at 8:20.


	2. September to December 2012

The BBC had good insurance. Dan only had to wait 2 weeks to get in to see a fancy therapist, and then another 2 weeks to find another one who wasn’t an old man who was understanding. He finally found someone to talk to who he actually felt safe with about 4 months after he moved back in with Phil. It had been short, the time flew by with all the work and projects they were doing behind the scenes like moving to London and improving the radio show, but it was long at the same time. Looking at Phil each day, not getting to kiss him anymore, not being able to make love with him anymore. It was agonizing.

It was as if they were teenagers with strict parents again, they were kind of dating again with the little dates they went on. There was no kissing, no sex and only a little hand holding. Phil would walk Dan to his room some nights and kiss his cheek before retreating into his own room. It was the affection they needed while they worked on what they deserved.

In 2010 when Dan first started getting ‘gloomy’, Phil and him had sat down to make a plan, a list of rules that they were to follow. It was easier for him to push the gloom away and live a little if he had a set schedule to follow and someone to push him to stay on it.

Dan still had it, it was in the box under his bed with the rest of the things made or was given from Phil. Train tickets, pinof on a usb, birthday cards, anniversary cards, random post-it notes from around the house. It was all kept nice and neatly under his bed. He reached under the abyss of things he had thrown under there beside it, and pulled the box out.

He unfolded the note.

                      The Rules!!

\- Weekdays bed before 2am and dont get up later than 10:30am  
\- Weekdays productive till 5pm  
\- No breaks until the weekend  
\- Try to post at least once a week  
\- Escape to starbucks open to close on Wednesdays  
\- Try to finish anything on the to do list by Saturday

            D. Lester             P.Lester.

It made him smile to see it. Back when they were in the giddy honeymoon phase of love and they thought it would be fun to sign with Phil’s last name. He missed it. Under it was a copy of the new rules. The ones they had memorized over the last few months and kept up with.

             The Rules 2012.

\- No sex.  
\- No touching in video’s or in public  
\- Productive from 10am-5pm week days  
\- In separate beds by 2am.  
\- Saturdays rehearse for the show  
\- Monday is a relax day  
\- Wednesday Dan’s filming day

           :Dan                Phil:)

He folded everything back up and slid the box back to where it belonged under his bed. He shimmied out of his track pants and threw his shirt on the floor before getting into bed. He had therapy the next day, the woman he was seeing now was named Brenda. She was lovely and understood everything he had explained to her so far.

He went in for his first session to do a basic rundown of who he is and why he wants help, telling her that he’s been told by 4 different doctors he most likely has depression but he fought it till it started to ruin his life. Each session she’s going to dig a little deeper into his mind to find out what he meant by ruining his life. He slipped into sleep thinking about the next day, the possible questions she would ask and the types of things he was ready for her to hear from him.

-

Her office was tiny, she had her desk in the corner with an armchair across from her seat as well as a chair facing a couch and a small coffee table between the two. There was a massive window behind the couch, giving the room a nice natural glow without the artificial light that made most people uneasy. He sat in the chair by her desk today, it was easier for him if he could fidget with things and touch the desk while he talked things out.

“So Dan,” she began. “I have this method that works with the five w’s, easy stuff right?”

He nodded in response. She wasn’t more than 30. She had the same eyes as Phil’s mum, soft blue and hooded eyelids. He could tell she was a happy person, looking at her while she talked he noticed all her freckles and smile lines. She was a very beautiful woman. Today her hair was down, long and strawberry blond, it flowed down one side of her neck and rested on her green jumper. He not only liked talking to her but she was nice to look at.

“Who are you? What do you do? Where do you see yourself headed? When was the last time you felt genuinely happy? And why is that? It may include some of the things we’ve already discussed but leaving you with these questions I want you to look into yourself and just talk.”

“Brenda, that is a heavy hitter.” he said with a small chuckle.

“I know, but it will get those thoughts that haunt you, that are normally stuck in your mind with no outlet for escape, out of you finally.” she said, a little too enthusiastically.

She had a yellow notepad out and a blue pen that she used to write ‘Dan Howell September 25th, 2012’ on and a harshly scribbled underline.

Dan took a deep breath in and quickly breathed out. “Who am I?” he repeated to himself. “I am Daniel James Howell, I am twenty-one years old. I’m a youtuber, I like to think I’m funny, honest and have too much love in my heart for my own good sometimes. I care too much, I’m a big time procrastinator even for a perfectionist and I’m probably bisexual, but I’m for sure depressed.”

She wrote everything down while he was quiet. “Okay. good start. Can you elaborate on each of those things?”

“Um yeah I guess.” he really didn’t enjoy going deep but this was how he was going to get better.

“I’m funny I guess cause I make comedy videos and people laugh and my grandma always said I was a comedian as a kid. I’m tell her crazy stories I made up and funny jokes when she would watch me and I don’t know I like pride myself on making others happy I guess.” he said, a small smile growing on his face cause of how true it was. “Every comment I get on a video that’s like ‘this made me smile today’ or ‘you’re funny’ just mean a lot to me. That works into the I care too much thing.”

She smiled at him, “how can you care too much?”

He took a moment to ponder, biting his lip and looking past her, towards the wall. He zoned out, thinking off how much his heart would ache at random things he had no control over. Like the goddamn bird that fell in love with a cement bird and died near it because it never wanted to leave its side. “One time, I spent two hours crying over a news article of a bird that fell in love with a bird statue. It stayed with it all the time till it eventually died beside it and I don’t know if it hurt because it was so touching or because I know that kind of love where I never want to leave his side but it hurt me so much and I’ll never get over it.” he let out a long huff after his waffle of words. “That’s just one example.”

“His side?” she repeated.

“I’m not ready to go there yet.”

“The last things you said are you’re a procrastinator, a perfectionist, bisexual and depressed. We might have to get there.” she pointed out, her face soft, he knew it must be hard to push people but it’s what she had to do sometimes.

He let out a long sigh. “As long as I can remember I have never ever cared about gender. It was never something I put attention into. If I liked someone then I liked someone, if I wanted to wear pink wigs and sing the spice girls I would and I was always like that as a child but more,” he paused to find the right word. “Free I guess. Like back then no one gave a single fuck what I was doing cause I was nine. But then when they continued not to care but not because I was a kid rather because they just really didn’t give a single fuck what I was doing I had no one to push me to continue to think it was okay and I could be me.”

He didn’t know when he started to get emotional, “I’ve never said that out loud before.”

“That’s okay. What did you mean by they didn’t care about you?” she asked next.

“I spent a lot of time with my grandma growing up cause my parents had me at nineteen and my mom was still in uni, so I was probably not wanted but they still loved me and everything and I can understand her wanting a career and leaving me with nan like I don’t mind that, it’s just I never felt particularly cared for by her and I know that sounds mean cause she does love me but she just wasn’t there.” he explained.

“And your dad?”

“He was the same,” he explained with a sigh, “he loved me and was there when he could be but I spent most of my childhood with my grandparents and even now they’re more in my life than my parents are. They call me every few days and they want to get tea when they’re in the city, they are so there for me sometimes its too much while if I want to talk to my parents I have to make the effort for them.”

“How do you think this works in with everything you described about yourself?” she asked. Guiding the conversation back to who he was.

“Well, I didn’t have anyone to really tell me what to do. I didn’t have anyone to push me to follow my dreams or tell me that I should do something so I put off thinking about it till it was almost too late.” he sucked his bottom lip into his mouth while he watched her write, thinking of how he’d explain the rest. “I loved theatre, my nan took me to theatre classes and stuff when I was a kid and I loved it so much but the perfectionist in me thought, I wasn’t good enough to be able to do that as a career and be the best at it. It sounds selfish but I really can’t commit unless I know I can be good at something so last minute I thought hey I’m smart I have amazing grades I’ll go to law school cause that shits interesting, but it was the worst thing I ever did.”

“Is that why you started doing youtube in the middle of the two?” she asked.

“Not really.” he answered.

“Oh.”

“I started youtube because Phil was a youtuber and I was falling madly head over heels in love with him and he said I had a good personality for being one.” he explained.

“Phil as in your roommate?”

“Yes.” he confirmed. “And ex boyfriend.” before she could respond he cut her off, “we’re on a break right now while I sort my shit out. He wanted to come out, I want to stay hidden for a bit we fought and broke up but kept seeing each other and this was the compromise. I wanted to get better and see if talking to someone will help me with everything and maybe one day it will work again.”

“So the breakup wasn’t because you aren’t in love anymore, it’s because you can’t handle it right now?” she asked for clarity.

“Sort of, he’s really good at helping me he’s the loveliest man on earth and has been with me for all the big things in my life but it’s hard and I can’t even explain why.”

“Try.”

He takes a minute to himself, thinking while she stares at him. It’s not intense but it’s not making him feel the easiest either. “So imagine this,” he starts. “You’re twenty one and close to a million people are watching you and talking about you every day. But it’s not just ‘oh that Brenda she’s the best we love her.’ it's ‘I wonder if Brenda and Janice are lesbians? They always are so close and Brenda looks like such a bottom omg and did you know Brenda has a little sister called Alice? Yeah lets stalk her and Brenda's other family members and ask them creepy questions and look into everything Brenda ever did in her whole life and analyze it.” he said. His voice getting louder and more angry as he spoke.

She was shocked, visibly shocked. Her mouth open a little and she blinked at him. “Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately.” he said with a sigh. “So I have that stress in my life. Then I have the stress of making creative and funny content and as I said I procrastinate and it has to be perfect so that’s so hard. It’s even harder when my brain feels like everything is dark and cloudy and I get headaches and hate the world so much so that I can do nothing but sit in my bed and do even more nothing. I can’t cry or do anything sad but I feel sad. And I’m working for one of the UK’s biggest companies that are known for being just a little bigoted so it’s not like I can come out or take days off when I feel like shit cause I have to plan a radio show. Everything is just a lot right now and Phil pressuring me on top of everything was like my tipping point. I almost moved out.”

She checked her clock on her desk, and she sighed. “As much as I’d like to unpack this, we’re going to have to save it and the rest of the w’s for next week.”

He sighed right back. “Alright.”

 

Phil liked to sit on Dan’s bed while he worked, and Dan liked to know he wasn’t alone. Even in the silence of them doing separate tasks, knowing they were together was enough. It was a weird form of codependency that they had grown to love. Dan sat at his desk planning what he wanted to say in a new video while Phil edited the playlist for the radio show for that week. He waved through a few hundred emails for the show, all hilarious and amazing. Some making him giggle to himself before he took the headphones off and made Dan watch it too.

The video he had managed to plan was going to be called “the meaning of life”, an add on to his college dropout video, a lot of it was thanks to his therapy session. “Phil?”

“Yeah?” he said, taking an ear out from under his earphones.

“Can I run this by you? I don’t know if it sounds right out loud .” he asked softly.

Phil nodded, “of course.” he said. Sitting up he pushed the headphones off completely.

“So this part is going to be a voice over zooming in on my panicked face okay just picture that.” he forewarned Phil, taking a deep breath. “I am Alive. I am a human with a life. I only have one life and then I die and stop existing. you are an independent mind in this universe that could do anything and everything they want to have ever dreamed of and there's no point in being alive if you're not gonna do it!”

Phil had a smile on his face as Dan turned back around from his desk to look at him. “Yeah that sounds very Dan.”

“Shut up, does it sound okay?”

“Yeah I like it, what else do you have?” Phil asked, still smiling. He actually liked listening to Dan’s video ideas which was nice.

He swallowed all the saliva in his mouth before reading the next part, “I think the problem is unless you have great parents or you have some inspirational teacher from a movie that pushes you to follow your dreams you can't expect a kid to be smart enough to realize they can do what they want with their life before they've just been pushed through the school system into having average life X being some customer service manager at blah blah oh God”

“This is going to be a good video I can already tell.”

Dan smiled. “You think?”

His smile was going to kill Dan. “Yeah, I love all the things you make though so I’m pretty biased.”

Dan smiled back and turned back to his laptop. He bit his lip, thinking he really loved Phil and it hurt so much. “Would it be okay if we hugged? Would that fuck up the rules?”

“What?” Phil asked, removing his headphones once again.

“Would hugging fuck everything up?” he asked again.

Phil’s shoulders relaxed and his face looked so soft. “Come here.”

Phil took his headphones off for good, closing his laptop and laying it on Dan’s floor. Dan stood up and walked over to his bed, Phil scooted over more to where his side was. Dan climbed into his bed, laying his head onto Phil’s chest and letting Phil wrap his arms around him. He felt like crying. It had been far too long since Phil had held him. Since he could feel how warm yet also cold Phil was. He missed how Phil would draw circles on his back with his fingers and run his nose lightly against Dan’s unstraightened hair. He had a thing for the curls that Dan would never understand.

“How’s therapy going?” Phil asked.

“It’s good,” he spoke so softly it was almost a whisper. “I like Brenda and I’m comfortable with her but I’m not magically fixed yet if you were wondering.”

“You could take another eighteen years to finally feel fixed and I wouldn’t care cause you’re still here with me.” Phil whispered back.

They were silent for a bit, Dan just enjoyed the rise and the fall of Phil’s chest and the feeling of his breath in his hair. It was serene. The darkness of the room, his amber light in the corner and the dead silence was perfect. It had been months since he’d felt content and okay in Phil’s arms.

“I told her about us yesterday. How you’re not just my flatmate but you’re also just my flatmate right now and how I love you and I’m working on myself and you’re waiting.” Dan explained.

Phil kissed his head. It sent a shiver through Dan’s whole body. “I love you.”

“I know.” Dan replied. Snuggling into him more, holding his waist tight and keeping the moment with him as long as he could.

-

He sat at Brenda’s desk once more. This time he brought a bottle of water with him, knowing he was going to be doing quite a lot of talking and his cat bracelet. It was perfect for fidgeting with while he spoke. “How are you feeling?” she asked him.

“I’m fine thank you, how are you?”

“Wonderful!” she cheered. She took out her notebook from last time, still open to where they left off. She scribbled ‘October 2nd, 2012’ with three underlines under it on the page. “So we left off having covered who you are and what you do but we also ended on you and your flatmate.”

He smiled softly. “Other than our family’s and the few friends I had in two thousand and nine who have seen me and Phil together, you’re the only person who knows that we were a thing.”

“Is that a big thing for you?” she asked softly.

“I’m not sure, like I didn’t care before when it was three hundred people watching me and a hundred thousand watching Phil. We would openly joke about having sex and I’d call him baby and everything online, like it used to be painfully obvious.” he pressed his lips together, thinking of how to talk it through. “Like, I’m not ashamed of being attracted to men or whatever and people calling me a fag online doesn’t bother me. It’s just I don’t want to tell people if that makes sense? Like they don’t need to know.”

“That makes sense. But you said Phil was pressuring you?” the words cut deep, the pain of it all was still there even if it had been a year.

He sighed, “There is a whole backstory to that if you don’t mind me explaining.”

“Go a head this is what I’m here for.”

He took a large sip of his water. “So I don’t know if you know how youtube works but basically you can make videos and put them on your account as unlisted, so only you can see them and if you give someone a link they can see it as well.” he started. Another deep breath helped. “Phil had made a video for me on Valentines Day twenty ten saying all his favorite moments we had and how we fell in love and how much I meant to him. It was the best thing anyone had ever done for me it was amazing.” he reminisced, making his heart hurt more.

“That’s sweet!” Brenda awed.

“But youtube glitched last September and it posted the video into peoples subscription boxes. So my special video that was just for us was shared with around six hundred thousand people and we didn’t notice till about four hours later.” he explained, Brenda’s face had dropped. “Yeah it was heartbreaking cause like I don’t want to share this special thing I have with Phil.”

“I understand that.”

“It’s almost selfish though. Like this is my thing. Phil is my boyfriend and he’s always going to be my best friend and my person and the best thing in my life and I want that to just be **_my_** thing. I want to know about our first kiss and our first time and I want to be the one who knows all his secrets and to know that he loves me and no one else but it got fucking leaked to the world. People still share it and see it now after a year and after my massive manic freakout.” he wanted to cry.

“It’s not selfish it’s human. That is your life and it should be your thing. No one is entitled to know what goes on between you and the person you love.” Brenda explained.

“Thank you!” He expressed back. “It’s so frustrating that I have all these followers, who most likely don’t mean harm, looking into my life like this. I’d understand if this was like a Marvel movie and everyone wanted to hear the story of Steve and Bucky falling in love but I’m a real fucking person and this is my thing. Phil is my special thing and I wanted to keep it that way.”

“So are you together?” she asked.

“No.”

“Explain why if you feel comfortable.”

“So when the video leaked I had a hard time telling him what I just told you. It came out more angry and homophobic even. I didn’t want to come out and say yeah me and Phil are together to the world. And he didn’t care what we did but he also kinda did.” his voice was soft, to a breaking point almost. “He said he didn’t care if we kept it a secret and lied to everyone saying it was a prank so that’s what we did. We told everyone that we were going to post it for April fools and get everyone but decided it was too mean to get their hopes up. I was fine with that and I kept telling people that and fighting anyone who said otherwise but Phil, he was hurting and I was hurting him.”

“How so?”

“When I’m upset I’m very mean. So some of the people asking me about Phil would say ‘what’s Phil’s dick taste like?’ as probably a joke but I was so done with it I would reply ‘what does your grandmas vagina taste like? This is the most disgusting thing you can send. Phil is nothing more than a friend.’ and while that was me putting up a defence Phil would read it and think I didn’t actually love him.”

She wrote it down, he could barely read upside down but he saw ‘defensive, borderline homophobic comments, Phil’s hurt feelings” scribbled onto her paper. “And so we fought a lot.” he added.

“When did the video leak?” she asked, looking at her paper.

“September seventeenth, last year.” he replied.

“And when did you breakup?”

“November fifteenth.”

She hummed as she wrote it down. “Whose decision was it?”

“We were both so mad I screamed something like ‘would you rather not be together?’ at him and he cried first and was like ‘yeah that might be best’ and we both cried.” he explained, his spirit dropping, his body feeling low and his head beginning to hurt. He could feel the depression building just from remembering it. “But it wasn’t like a breakup, like when I dumped my last girlfriend literally for Phil I felt sad cause I did love her and I was leaving that part of my life. But this time, I was sad not because he was leaving me but because Phil was going to stay around. Like neither one of us was going to actually make the move and even when I tried to leave I came right back.”

“Last time did you say you kept sleeping together?”

“I worded it different but yeah and that didn’t help.” he said before taking another sip of water. “Cause I’d go to him at night to talk and I knew we would end up having sex and he probably knew too and I’d stay in his room cuddled into him and he recently told me it hurt him so much that he’d cry after I fell asleep.”

“How long has it been since you last had sex?” she asked.

“We haven’t since June.”

“Not to sound intruding but was the last time on a good note like ‘this is the last time’ sex or was it just a thing that you then decided was the last?” she asked. As if there was a difference in Dan’s case.

He let out possibly the longest breath yet, “it was my birthday, we were drunk in Vegas and I wanted it so it happened. Two days later Phil was telling me he couldn’t keep doing it and that being around me made it too hard to fall out of love. So when we got home from our trip I was about to move out, I was going to stay with my parents, I had packed and gotten rid of a bunch of shit and I was on my way when we compromised. It made the move to London a lot easier last month though.”

She wrote it down. Like she did all of it. The silence was going to kill him. “And that’s what then brought you to therapy correct? That was your compromise?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, I’ve seen about four doctors over the years who’ve all suggested I have depression based on what I described from my gloomy days but I never had that final push to come till Phil said we should do therapy together and I said I rather get help alone first.”

“Do you think you’ll benefit alone more?”

“It’s more,” he said swallowing in an attempt to keep the tears back. “If I cry I’m sorry.” he forewarned her. “As much as I love Phil, I feel too dark and twisted in my head and I don’t want him to see me as more broken than I already am.”

She pushed the box of tissues towards him. “Don’t worry about crying in front of me.” she said softly. “And you’re not broken. The human brain is only five percent understood, meaning no one knows why we feel and react to things the way we do. You are perfectly valid in your feelings and wanting to get better Dan. I think that’s where we’ll leave today.”

The session was hard. But coming home he knew he had things to do. He grabbed a coffee and some donuts for him and Phil and returned to their flat. The donuts were traded for a hug in the kitchen from Phil, which cleared a bit of the grey clouds over his head, but not all of it. He put on a happy face and a new shirt and did a liveshow for his followers.

He felt like he lost his mind halfway through the livestream. The topics jumped all over from the word moist to muse’s new album, people asking him if he was on drugs from the amount of weird noises he made and the not so smart decision to jokingly show his clothed ass to the camera. But the weirdest part was that somehow at some point he ended up on Phil’s bed.

They were playing a funny game of badly singing notes from songs to see if people would get them. It was nice and refreshing to be together, giddy and happy for once on camera. He was lying on what was once his side of Phil’s bed. It still had his body print in it, he fell right back into a calm state sitting there. He ended the liveshow in the lounge, but ended up right back in Phil’s bedroom.

“You okay?” Phil asked him.

“Yeah. Bit hungry but not sure what to make.” he said, sitting down on Phil’s bed again and resting his cheek on Phil’s shoulder to see what he was editing.

“Order in a pizza, treat yourself a little.” Phil replied, tilting his head to touch Dan’s. He could tell October was going to be good to them.

-

They were invited to the Frankenweenie premiere in London on the 10th, they almost didn’t say yes to going cause it would have been too weird being seen at at event together. But Phil asked for a plus one and brought Bryony to make it better. She was one of the few people who knew they were on a break. It was easy with her, she knew what it was like to be on a break from her partner, seeing as her and wirrow were on and off almost every other month. Sometimes it was healthy to just not be attached at the hip.

Bryony came over and got ready at their house, Dan sat beside her in the bathroom while she put her makeup on. It was always something he loved watching his ex girlfriend do, while his mum was never really a makeup wearer he never watched her while he grew up. But he was fascinated by the colours and how much a simple product brought so much confidence to someone.

“How are you?” she asked softly.

“I’m okay.” he replied equally as soft.

She stared at him through the mirror for a moment, turning around to really look at him, “how is therapy?” she was all for him putting himself first when he first told her.

“I really like it, I’ve only seen her three times now but I already feel better,” he spoke quietly in the bathroom so his voice didn’t travel through the house. “I like not having to worry about her judging me like she’s not my friend so she doesn’t know me or my past yet and I can just dump it all on her and get good advice because she doesn’t know anything other than what I’ve told her.”

“That’s why I love therapy.” she said with a smile.

“It really takes a weight off my shoulders.”

She winked at him, turning back to finish her makeup, “if you don’t mind I’m going to need to change soon and I don’t want you watching me do that too.”

He laughed, “yep I’m going.”

He walked out, closed the door behind him and walked up to the lounge where Phil was sat on his laptop. “Hey dorkus, I need to get my suit from your closet.”

“You can only get it if you help me pick out what I’m wearing.” he replied, pushing his laptop to the side and standing up. He walked towards Dan, putting his hands on his chest and looking him in the eyes, “you always tell me what I look good in and I appreciate it.”

“You’re handsome in everything.” he whispered down at him, it was weird being so much taller than him now. He leaned in and kissed him softly. It was one of the rare times they kissed on the lips now.

“Come on, we need to get ready.” Phil said with a smile.

In Phil’s room he pulled his suit and Phil’s from the closet. They kept them both in there cause his was bigger, there was more space for it to hang without getting wrinkled like it would in Dan’s tiny hand built IKEA wardrobe. “White shirts, definitely.” Dan said.

“You look cute in bowties.” Phil told him. He was trying to flirt, knowing they weren’t supposed to. But, going out somewhere nice maybe counted as a date, like they were starting over again.

“Well, I always like when you wear ties.” he flirted back, opening Phil’s drawer to take one out. He walked over to him and put it around his neck. Pulling him in closer with it. “I actually love when you wear ties.”

He kissed him again, long and lingering, Phil’s hands moving to grab his hips. Dan let go of the ties ends, dropping to Phil’s chest. The kiss was long, he didn’t want to move, he wanted to stay with his lips pressed to Phil’s forever. He didn’t dare opening his mouth, or swipe his tongue against Phil’s beautiful plump bottom lip, he just pressed them together so hard, breathing him in while he could.

“Hey Phil?” Bryony called, passing their doorways to walk into Dan’s room.

Dan pushed Phil back, the two of them turning bright pink and trying to straighten their shirts out. “What were you two doing?”

“Nothing.” they replied at the same time.

“Okay… well your faces say otherwise.” she said, eyes narrowing in on them like she definitely knew. “I need one of you to tighten my bra strap, I can’t reach it.” she said, sliding her dress off her shoulder. It was a beautiful satin dark purple with red and pink circles all over it.

“I’m out.” Dan said, taking his suit from the bed, walking around Phil and bumping his shoulder as he left.

He walked into his room and closed the door. Listening carefully to them in the other room. She taught Phil how to do it, and thanked him but she didn’t leave his room. “You’re waiting for him right?”

“Yeah of course.”

“Good. He seems so happy and I know that will just make him happier when you two finally do get back together. Don’t fun him up like you did Jimmy, or Charlie.”

“He’s the love of my life Bry. I’m going to fight for him for the rest of my life.”

He could feel his heart start to swell.

The event went swimmingly, they met up with Carrie and Alex, Pj and Sophie were there too and a few other people they hardly knew but didn’t mind speaking to. PJ still didn’t know they were broken up, but the best part about being in public was that they acted like friends, which was the same as being separated.

Bryony came back to theirs to collect her things and take a taxi home to see her boyfriend. “I’ve seen you two flirting and touching hands all night Dan.” she said while they were alone in the bathroom once again. “Be careful.”

“He loves me Bry.” he reminded her.

“I know he does, I have no doubt. But, you don’t love yourself.”

It hit him hard. “I know.”

“So don’t fill that hole in your heart with his love. Fill it with your own and his will feel better.” she said softy.

He didn’t want to cry, or react to the sappiness of her words. “What stony fic did you get that from?”

She laughed. “It’s an m-preg one, I’ll send you a link.” she smiled.

“Thanks for coming tonight.”

“I’m always around when you need me.” She said, patting his shoulder. She wasn’t a hugger but he knew she meant well.

She left, Dan shut the front door and leaned against it lightly. She was right, she taught him years ago that she was always right and that he shouldn’t ever think twice about her judgement. He did need to love himself and he was working on it. He was going to keep working on it. But who was to say he couldn’t be learning to love himself while also loving Phil? He knew he could do that. It was the one thing he was really sure about.

In Phil’s room he was removing his shirt, button by button, not noticing that Dan was in the hallway. He just watched, in awe as that chest he’d spent so many nights resting his head upon was beginning to show. He missed it. He missed running his hands up it, he missed putting his head on it to hear his heartbeat, he missed kissing it and running his tongue along his nipples.

He let out a little huff, one that Phil heard. His head shot up to Dan in the doorway and his movements stopped. “What?”

“Nothing.” he said quickly, swallowing. “I just miss you.” he whispered, barely even audible.

Phil unbuttoned his shirt all the way and took it off, laying it on the foot of his ugly wicker bed frame. “We can’t do anything about it.”

“That’s why I’m staying out here because if I pass this door way I am going to jump on you and I won’t be able to stop myself.” he said softly, trying to steady his breath.

“Let me change, and I’ll come give you a goodnight kiss?” Phil offered, walking towards his door. Dan nodded, and he closed it, leaving Dan in the hallway, the darkness all around him helped.

In his room he changed as well, putting his suit back in the bag and zipping it up, he hung it behind his door till he could put it back in Phil’s room. He threw on his track pants and his tie dye shirt. It was the softest one for sleeping in.

Phil knocked on his door and peeked his head in a short time later, “hey.”

“Come sit.” he said with a smile, patting Phil’s side of his bed.

Phil got into his bed, right under the covers and slid right up against him. Dan turned to his side and let Phil spoon up against him. He wrapped his arms around Dan and nuzzled his face right into the back of Dan’s neck. They stayed there for a long time, if Dan had to guess it was over a half hour of silent cuddles. Neither one of them talked, Phil ran his thumb against Dan’s arms softly and kissed his clothed shoulder every once and awhile.

“Phil?”

“Hmm?”

“Go back to your room before you fall asleep.” Dan whispered.

“Yeah.” he said, pulling back a bit.

Dan rolled onto his back, looking up and Phil who had hovered over him lightly. It had been so long since Phil had been on top of him in any sense. He put his hand at the back of Phil’s neck and pulled him down into a kiss. Soft like the one from earlier in the night.

Phil pecked his lips over and over again, making Dan smile into the kiss. “I love you.” Phil whispered.

“I know.” Dan replied, a giggle in his voice. He kissed him more, holding him under the sheets, Phil moved his knee so it was between Dan’s legs and he could lie onto him more comfortably.

“No.” Dan said softly against Phil’s lips.

“I know.” he said, kissing him one last time and getting out of the bed. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Phil.” he smiled. Phil closed the door behind him as he left. “I love you too.” he whispered before rolling over and trying to pressure his body into going to sleep.

-

October was good to them. Dan felt his mind and his heart start to work together around the hard days. They still sucked and he still found himself wallowing in the darkness more than not but having Phil understand and offer to help him made it bearable. The cuddles made everything a tad better as well. They filmed a baking video for the first time in a while, laughing with each other at 3 in the morning, smacking each other with floury hands and seeing who could look the more worse off. All in all, they were happy.

Phil walked into the lounge a little after midnight. They had officially made it to November once again, Dan felt a twinge of anxiety bubbling in his stomach remembering how hard the last year was but he pushed it all away to focus on the movie he was watching. Phil sat beside him and paused it.

“Hey.” Dan said, playfully before he noticed Phil’s face. “What’s wrong.”

“I handled it before you could notice, and I don’t want you to worry but, the video was posted on tumblr a few hours ago, more people have seen it and it will probably come back more.” he explained. Dan felt his stomach caving in, the nausea running up his chest and resting thick in his throat. “I put a copyright claim on it last year. It’s mine, and I’ve contacted tumblr to take it down anytime it is re-uploaded. I’ll be doing the same on youtube if someone puts it there.”

He pouted, and then cried. “I thought we were good.”

“We are!” Phil said, pulling Dan forward and wrapping him in his arms. Dan slowly put his arms around Phil’s waist. “I knew it would come back, and in the last year I’ve come to understand what you meant by this was for us.”

He pulled back from Dan but held his shoulders to look him in the eyes. “What we have is for us, and only us. Only we get to know the love we have and only we get to know the secrets of us.”

He cried more knowing Phil understood. “I‘m not ashamed to love you, I just want to keep it to ourselves.” Dan whispered, his throat thick from holding in more sobs.

“They don’t deserve to know.”

Dan couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and kissed Phil right on the mouth. It was soft and unsure, so much so that it felt like the first time he ever reached forward and kissed him. And just like back then, Phil pulled him closer so their chests were touching and prolonged the kiss.

The difference this time was that he started to pepper kisses on Dan’s mouth, across his cheek to his ear and down his neck. Dan let himself enjoy it for a moment before he pulled back. Resting his hands on Phil’s chest as he looked him in the eyes.

“I know.” Phil said.

“We’re doing so well, therapy is helping me so much but I don’t know if I can trust myself yet.” Dan explained to him.

“What do you mean trust yourself?” Phil asked softly.

“I mean,” he spoke, dropping his head to avoid eye contact. “I don’t know how to handle the depression and the mood swings and the crisis and with more people seeing this I don’t know how much worse it will get. So till I can trust myself we can’t have sex because I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

“I understand.” Phil said before kissing his forehead. “And it’s okay.”

“Do you miss it?” Dan shyly asked.

“Of course I miss it but I’d miss it a hell of a lot more if we weren't working to get back together.” he confirmed.

They settled into the couch together, Phil hit play on the movie once more and together they watched it. Cuddling had come back into their lives since that day in Dan’s bed, it was purely platonic in nature. Just two men who were ex lovers cuddling when they had the chance. It was like recharging.

Sure a hug was amazing every now and then, and the kisses Phil left on his cheek were nice. But staying pressed together for hours on end was like he was a battery in a charger, he was being filled with love and energy that he needed to go on. It didn’t make the pining harder, rather it made it more bearable. They knew that when they missed how it used to be, and how much they were working on understanding one another, a simple cuddle wasn’t going to send them back to the start.

-

“So.” Brenda said, sitting at her desk once more, “how have you been?”

Dan smiled, surprisingly he was feeling really well that day. “I’ve been good, how are you.”

“Wonderful, even with today being a year since the breakup you’re good today?” she asked. They made the appointment for November 15th knowing he might need a little support. He wasn’t sure how he’d be. It had been over a month since their last session, so they didn’t chance him not being able to have an outlet on a hard day.

With the small smile still on his face, “we’re doing really good.”

She smiled back, “are you back together or are you still working towards that?”

“We don’t have a label on it. We’re not sleeping together but we’re having little dates and he’ll kiss my cheek at night before I go into my room at night. We’ve also moved from a random hug when we miss contact to cuddling and it’s been really, really nice.” he explained, his voice softer than it had ever been with her, it was the voice he used when he talked to Phil.

She smiled so wide at him. “That’s amazing progress, I’m glad you’re working well together.” she wrote down his name and the date in her notebook once more, adding the same harsh underline that he grew to associate with her. She was like the harsh underline in his life, there to help him highlight what was happening. “Now, I want to move on to you. I want you to talk about you again. We’ve spent two sessions on Phil and your relationships but I would like to know about Daniel Howell.”

“What about me?” Dan asked.

“Anything. Start somewhere simple or drastic. Biggest fears? What makes you happy? Anything.” she said. “Sometimes it’s good to just talk and see where it takes you.”

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve to be loved.” he said softly.

“Okay, we can work with that.” she said, writing it down. “Why do you feel like that?”

“Well it’s not so much that I don’t deserve to be loved but rather that no one truly loves me. That I’m a fuck up and nothing works out right and that no one will truly love me.” he spoke, his throat thick, he wanted to cry already. It was going to be one of those emotional days where anything made him cry.

“Did you feel like this before Phil?”

“Oh yeah.” he said, clearing his throat. “Before Phil I was so sad and lonely, and in the closet and just feeling so unloved for so long.”

“Aren’t you still in the closet?” she asked.

“Yeah, I was in the closet to myself. I had bi in my myspace bio back then to look cool but I was so scared to like let myself be gay.” he explained, shaking his head and remembering all the hard times of his youth.

“Did you experiment with boys before Phil?”

He nodded. “His name was Chris, we were fifteen and it was a church theatre camp.” he explained. He felt his cheeks start to heat up, he was probably pink. “We went up to Reading and stayed in cabins. We had been flirting the whole summer while we were at the church but being away for a weekend and being the only boys to share the cabin we had an interesting time.”

“Feel free to go in as much detail as you want, I don’t judge.” she reminded him. She was there to listen and learn and evaluate him.

“Chris was the first boy I touched. I was the first boy he ever touched. We moved slowly from making out to hand jobs all the way to the last night when I gave him a blowjob and pretty much confirmed to myself that yes I was gay. A little or a lot, I still have no clue.”

“A little or a lot?” she repeated, confused.

“When I was sixteen I started dating a girl called Erin.” he explained. “And while I loved her and sex was really nice and I genuinely love boobs and how soft women are and long hair, being with men was more,” he paused to think of the right word. “Rewarding.”

“So how long did that last?”

“We were together for three years.” he said.

“That’s a long time to date someone and know you weren’t fully enjoying it just from one blowjob.” she said surprised.

“I cheated on her a lot.” he said with shame in his voice.

“Oh.” she was thoroughly shocked.

“I’d meet boys at theatre events, and we’d sneak off and make out. Or there was a gay guy at my school called Matthew who wasn’t out either and we’d hang out at parties and disappear to blow each other.” he explained more. “I did love Erin and I know I did but being with a man is just more enjoyable.”

“So do you think you’re gay?”

“No.”

“Bisexual?”

“No.”

“What then?” she asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

“I don’t want a label to it. Because if it came down to it, being with both men and women is enjoyable but being with Phil, that’s what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.”

“Phil-sexual.” she said with a smile.

“Precisely.”

She smiled, she was such a smiley woman. She loved listening to him and she didn’t judge him. “You know, yes cheating is wrong, but you were finding yourself and you never did it to hurt her. You do deserve love and by the way you talk about Phil I really do think that you are loved.”

“By him, yes.”

“And your audience.” she reminded him. He nodded in response. “And your family even if they aren’t reaching out or spending every waking moment with you.”

“I know, people show love in different ways.” he compromised. “I know my head is fucked and that these thoughts are just stupid and not backed up.”

“Have you ever heard of cognitive behavioural therapy?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“So it focuses in on bad and unhelpful thoughts, helps you recognize them and theorize the truths and lies behind them. So here,” she said, reaching for a pen and a sticky-note. “Write down at the top ‘I don’t deserve love.’ then write reasons to believe it on the left and reasons not to on the right.”

On the left her wrote:  
-i am annoying  
-i drive people away  
-no one wants to talk to me first  
-i make people i love upset

On the right he wrote:  
-i’m told i am loved  
-people are busy but still love me  
-it’s not my mum’s fault she isn’t affectionate  
-my brain is sick and doesn’t let me see things how they are.

“Good see, you’re rationalizing the thought.” she cheered. “I’m going to give you sheet with all the examples of unhelpful thinking and every day or once a week think of one of the thoughts you’ve had and write it down and prove to yourself that they are unreasonable and try and identify what kind of thought they are.” she turned around in her desk to open a drawer of paperwork.

“There are; over generalizing which is when we see a pattern of events and draw a conclusion. Then emotional reasoning which is assuming that we feel a certain way so it must be true, or labeling which is when we say things like; I’m a loser or I’m unloveable.” the small smile on her face showing him she picked those three based on what he talked about. “Do you think you can do that?”

“Yeah.”

He got home and put the sheet in the office, pinning it to the pin board behind the imac. He knew if he put it in his room he’d lose it forever, it would end up behind his bed or under his desk and never to be found again. He was going to try and make an effort to come up every night before bed on on the nights he couldn’t sleep and fill out one thought. Some of his perfectionism was shining thought wanting to be the best client she had, but he had to remind himself that that’s not what therapy was about.

-

His November session helped him create ‘List of Reasons why I’m an Awful Human being.” and surprisingly there were lots of people who did the same _unmentionable_ things. The best part of his job was being able to share his life and know that he wasn’t alone in his weirdness. He thought about how far he could open up with them in the future, how much could he tell them about his life that they would understand and resonate with.

So he made a list of future video ideas for the upcoming years. December was about making new year's resolutions after all.

-dread for human interaction  
-fictional friends  
-ironic appreciation  
-messy room  
-cringe attacks  
-existential crisis  
-depression  
-psycho thoughts…

They sat in a document on his laptop to be explored later on.

Chris and PJ were supposed to be coming over that day, they were filming an informative safety video focused around the Christmas time. They were going to quickly film a few things all together and then hang out for the night and the boys were going to stay. Which meant they had to keep up the act that they were still dating, while trying to look like they were not dating on camera. It was difficult.

Chris and PJ when they visited for the night at the Manchester apartment would always sleep in Dan’s bed together while he was with Phil. This would mean that they’d be sleeping in his room again and Dan would be spending his night with Phil for the first time since June. He cleaned his room all up, changed the sheets to fresh ones and placed a few moving boxes from the tourret in there to make it look like they didn’t use Dan’s room often.

PJ got in first, taking the train in from Brighton while Chris was late even living just across town from them. It was classic Chris. They all hugged at the door when they got in, leaving to sit in the lounge and catch up. Luckily the boys didn’t mention them as an item, they didn’t care that their best friends were fucking or used to fuck.

They played Mario Kart and ordered in a few pizza’s, they drank some beer and finally around 11pm decided to film Dan’s short clip. All of them sitting around the dining table, cracker hats on and matching Christmas sweaters. Dan jumped into director mode, telling them the play by play of events and what he’d like them all to do and say as well as letting them improv where they saw fit.

“Now Chris, when you’re choking I’m going to demonstrate smacking your back but jokingly hit your ass, is that alright?” Dan asked.

“Phil can your boyfriend smack my ass playfully?” Chris said, turning his whole body to Phil and arching his eyebrow at him.

Phil turned pink and laughed. “Yes I don’t care at the end of the day he’s still my boyfriend.”

“Cocky, I like it.” Chris joked.

It all went quite smoothly, they filmed it in a few takes and after a few laughing fits. They all helped take the camera and the lights down the hall to Dan’s room, setting them up for a couple rounds of Twister for PJ’s channel.

“So how are we doing this?” PJ asked. “Phil, Dan, Chris than me?”

“Clockwise in order of sexiness.” Dan clapped back.

“Alright.” PJ said with a laugh while Phil turned bright pink once again.

It was fun. They were loving every second of being together. It was nice to have friends and laughter in their house instead of awkward silence and mutual pining and broken hearts. Chris ended up winning, getting all the easy moves while Phil kept falling and taking Dan down with him. Dan smiled and laughed harder than he had in a long time.

They turned the light off, stopping the camera and they all took and released a deep breath at the same time. They fell back into who they were off camera very easily. They exported all their footage while still sitting on the carpet floor of Dan’s room. Chris got up to lie back on Dan’s bed. “I’m weary of where to sit I don’t know where you lovebirds have and haven’t been.”

Dan laughed, cause jokes on Chris, they hadn’t fucked anywhere in the house yet. Yet. “we’re normal sane people Chris. We only do it in Phil’s bed.”

“Speaking of, try and be quiet tonight. You two were not obvious in Italy and I’m still scared.” PJ said with a shudder.

“You both weren’t supposed to be back for hours that is your fault.” Phil spat back.

“Whatever, you got the point.” he said with another laugh.

Around 2 they all got ready for bed, taking turns in the bathroom and returning to the rooms where they would be staying for the night. Chris and PJ turned in first, closing Dan’s bedroom door almost all the way, leaving it open just a crack. Phil was sat on his bed, shirtless reading a book with his glasses on. Dan turned the main light off and closed the door behind himself.

He smile at Phil, they hadn’t done this in so long. He slipped under the covers and shimmied right over to Phil’s side to read whatever he was also reading. Phil held his book with one hand, wrapping the other around Dan’s shoulder, it was like nothing changed from before.

They read a few pages, Dan had no clue what book it was or what was happening but it kept him close to Phil. Feeling the rise and fall of his bare chest, his thumb would occasionally rub Dan’s arm and he’s always change the page before Dan was even close to being done.

He closed it when he reached chapter 13. “Are you tired?” he asked.

“No.” Dan replied.

Phil put his book down on the night table, set his glasses on them, and turned off his lamp. He got further under the covers and turned to look at Dan. “neither am I.”

Phil kept flicking his gaze from Dan’s eyes to his lips, he moved in a little closer and touched his hand to Dan’s cheek. “Can I kiss you?” he asked.

“Always.”

Phil pressed their lips together softly. He went in again with an open mouth and Dan reciprocated, they hadn’t made out since Halloween. Dan moved his hand to rest on Phil’s waist while he pushed his body in closer to him. He pulled Phil on top of him, making out with him softly. There was a small spark of want, there always was when they were this sex deprived from one another.

Dan pulled back moving to cup Phil’s face while he looked down at him. “What are we doing?” he asked, whispering so the boys next door didn’t hear them.

“What do _you_ want to do?” Phil asked.

“We can’t fuck up like six months of progress.” Dan said, he wasn’t saying no but he wasn’t saying yes either. He was trying to find a compromise.

“I’ve been thinking,” Phil whispered, dropping his head back down to kiss Dan’s lips softy, and then his chin to his ear and down Dan’s neck. Dan closed his eyes and bit down on his lip, he missed it so much. “What if we touched ourselves together then we’re technically not having sex.” Phil added.

“Like back when you convinced me that masturbating on Skype wasn’t cheating on my girlfriend.” Dan replied, running his fingers through Phil’s hair as he kept kissing his neck.

“Exactly like that.”Phil said, taking Dan’s earlobe into his mouth and sucking on it lightly.

Dan grabbed Phil’s face and pulled him back into a kiss. Phil’s stubble was rubbing against his chin and he felt the beard rash forming on his neck from where Phil had just been, he ran his hands up and down Phil’s naked torso, he couldn’t get enough.

“I think I’m okay.” he said into Phil’s open mouth.

“You’re not.” Phil replied, “you’re just horny.”

“So are you.” Dan replied, flipping them and grinding down against Phil, he felt himself start to get hard, that wonderful feeling of the blood rushing to the head of his cock, taking control of him.

“Can’t help what you do to me.” Phil replied, putting his hands under Dan’s shirt and roaming them all over his back.

Dan made his way from Phil’s lips down his neck, sucking on his Adam’s apple and licking over it right after. “God I’ve missed your neck.” Dan half moaned. He kissed down more, leaving love bites on his collarbones and chest.

“What else have you missed?” Phil asked, dropping his hands down to grab Dan’s ass cheeks and grope him.

Dan gasped at the feeling, “your cock. In every sense.” he spoke softly. Moving to hold himself above Phil and look down at him in the darkness. His hair was pushed back, his eyes looked black in both passion and the darkness mixed with the blue. “I miss it in my mouth, hot and heavy in my hand, stretching me open, spilling deep inside of me as you fuck me to my limit.” Dan knew what to say to get Phil going.

He felt Phil buck up into him, his cock fully hard. “We can’t.” Phil said softly, but so blissful.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t touch myself right here,” he said, rolling off of Phil and to his side of the bed. He shimmied out of his bottoms and flung his top onto the floor.

Phil grabbed his glasses off his night table once more, putting them on his face, “I’m not missing this for the world.” Phil said, shoving his pants down to his ankles and flinging the bedsheets down to their knees so they could see each other in the darkness of his room.

“Lube?” Dan asked.

“Yeah, your side still.” Phil said, and it made Dan’s heart hurt for a split second.

Even being broken up, even moving and redecorating a new bedroom he still kept Dan’s bedside drawers the way Dan liked them. Lube, tissues, ibuprofen for his late night depression headaches, a spare phone charger and an extra pair of headphones. He smiled at it all, but grabbed the plain durex lube that was brand new and cracked it open.

“When did you buy this?” he asked, peeling the seal to pop the lid off and pump some into Phil’s hand before his own.

“I honestly don’t know, I’ve not really gotten off a lot since everything happened.” he said softly.

“Why’s that?” Dan asked, staring at him, both with a handful of lube not doing anything.

“The only thing that gets me this hard is you, and without you it just doesn’t feel right.” Phil admitted.

His heart ached and his cock twitched thinking about Phil only being hard for him. “Well baby you’ve got me now.” he said, “now are you going to put that wonderful cock to use or not?”

Phil lightly stroked himself, Dan watched as his body tensed at the pleasure. He must have been telling the truth, the amount of want and need in his strokes just went to show how desperate he was to get off. Dan couldn’t stand it, it was so hot he gripped his own and started to stroke, it was nowhere near as magnificent as Phil’s but he seemed to like it.

Phil reached his left hand out, placing it on Dan’s thigh, rubbing his thumb on it lightly and squeezing ever so softly. It felt wonderful, for him masturbation was a coping mechanism he developed in high school, so it wasn’t like he had gone without it for a while. He could only imagine how much nicer it felt for Phil with his accidental celibacy.

Dan took Phil’s hand in his, holding it while he jerked himself off. It was an odd level of intimacy they’d not experienced together. It was almost like all those time’s Phil would fuck him while holding his hands above his head back in the day. It was something Dan grew to love, interlocking their fingers while Phil’s pile drived into him.

“Fuck Dan,” Phil said with a pant. “I’m not sure how long I can last.”

“I want you to cum on me.”

“Yeah?” Phil asked, letting go of Dan’s hand, moving to pull Dan to the middle of the bed and straddle himself above Dan’s legs. “Yeah.” Dan confirmed, he was so turned on he couldn’t say anything else.

Phil’s beautiful cock was there in front of him, where he could reach out and touch it. He wasn’t sure if that was breaking the rules, he wasn’t sure what counted as sex and what counted as two dudes getting off at the same time. All he knew is he was drooling looking at the beautiful dark shape of Phil’s body in the darkness in front of him.

Dan continued to jerk himself off, the slick sounds that filled the room were crude beyond belief. There was no doubt Chris and PJ could hear them, and that just kept up the act they were still together. At this point Dan was pretty sure they were close to being official once again. Phil’s thighs were shaking, a clue he was close.

Dan dropped his cock and shimmied down the bed so that he was face level with him and impulsively licked at Phil’s balls. “Fuck.” he moaned.

“Let me suck you off please.”

“We ca-”

“Please?” Dan begged, “please, please, please?” he sounded like a desperate whore.

Phil gave in and pushed his cock into Dan’s open mouth. He felt a relief in his chest, it had been so long since he’s had his beautiful cock in his mouth, it had been too long since he’s felt the weight on his tongue and even longer since he tasted the salt of his precum. He was in fucking heaven bobbing his head while holding Phil’s balls. “I’m so close Dan.” he said.

Dan pulled off, licking from base to tip. “Fuck my face.” he instructed, taking him back in his mouth and Phil obliged. Grabbing Dan’s head and fucking into him, moaning and panting as Dan took him so deep in his throat. He didn’t gag, he breathed through his nose and kept calm while Phil went wild on him.

It had been far too long.

Phil pulled out and jerked it once, twice and he was cumming hot and thick on Dan’s face and tongue. He was as quiet as he could be when Dan knew he wanted to be screaming like he used to. For a deep voiced man, pleasure escaped him in high pitched “ah’s”

Dan laid back, his cock so hard from how turned on that made him, Phil just gripped him lightly and he was cumming with Phil’s name on the tip of his tongue, but nothing came out. His voice was going to be groggy and gone for awhile after that. Phil sat on him lightly, reaching into the night table once more to get the tissues. He wiped down Dan’s chest and threw that tissue on the floor. He wiped off his own cock and threw that tissue on the floor. Then he carefully and gently wiped down Dan’s face. Leaning in and pressing a soft kiss to his mouth once he was cleaned off.

“You’re going to be sticky if I don’t really clean you, I’ll be back.” Phil said.

“No,” Dan tried to say.

“Lie down it’s fine, that’s my mess.” Phil said, putting his bottoms back on and leaving the room.

Dan laid there in his post coital bliss, he hadn’t come that hard since some time in May. The last time they had sober and wonderful sex. Even though at the time it was hate sex, it was still some of the best sex they had. He took a moment to put his bottoms back on too before Phil came back with a wet washcloth.

He flicked on the lamp and looked down at Dan. he smiled, running the over his cheeks and chin, across his forehead and even getting some of it out of his hair. “I miss taking care of you.” he said softly, putting the cloth on the table and turning the light back off.

He cuddled right back into Dan. “I love you.” Dan whispered. It was the first time he initiated it in a long time.

“I know.” Phil replied at first. Dan pulled away to look at him with fake anger. “I love you too.” Phil reminded him. Kissing his lips once more. “You’re not going to regret this in the morning are you?”

“No.” Dan replied. “I know what I have to work on to be happy, and I know you understand why I’m not ready to tell the world. I know things are good right now and I’m okay right now.”

“So, are we back together then?” Phil asked.

“Ask me nicely when your cock hasn’t just been in my throat and maybe I’ll say yes.” Dan said with a smile.

“You’re a piece of work.”

“I know.”

 

In the kitchen the next morning Dan’s hair was a mess and Phil was covered in hickies. Chris and PJ just laughed at them as they walked into the lounge. “We thought we told you to keep it down?”

“We didn’t think that would happen.” Dan said honestly.

“I’m really not surprised you two are like rabbits any way.” Chris said before taking a sip of his coffee.

“We haven’t done anything in a long time it kinda just happened we couldn’t help it.”

“You two? Not doing it for a while? Okay.” PJ joked, making eye contact with Chris and laughing.

“We’re serious it’s been a while.” Phil said, laying his empty bowl on the coffee table.

“Like what 2 days?” Chris asked.

“Try five months.” Dan said, flat faced and not playing around anymore.

“What?!” the both said.

“We broke up last November but kept fucking and then after Vegas had a big fight and haven’t slept in the same room since while we’ve been working on getting back together, so you two coming over and us pretending to be fine gave us a chance to fuck again.” Dan explained.

“Well,” PJ said, coughing a bit. “Glad we could hep rekindle things.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Chris asked.

“We don’t know how long the break will last, we didn’t expect it to be a year and I don’t know how much longer it will be but we’re working on it.” Phil said.

“And I didn’t want to tell people and have you guys be sad or think we couldn’t all hang out or make things awkward when we are working towards forever.” Dan added.

“You two really are made for each other, it’s really shocking to know you’re on a break.” Chris said with a soft smile.

Dan looked at Phil who was already looking at him. “We know.” they said with a smile. “But it’s going to be okay.”

-

Christmas had come and gone, Phil was in Manchester with his parents still packing up his old house so his parents could move and Dan was sat in the waiting room of his therapists office with a book of all the little thoughts he’d had since their last session. A whole month of him thinking poorly of himself was written down and debunked in his book. Things from; my friends hate me, i’m always a fuck up, and Phil doesn’t truly love me, all written down for Brenda to read.

Brenda walked out to the waiting room, “hi Dan, come on in.” she said, waving him down the hallway. He got up to follow her, and every time he remembered how short she was compared to him. Barely even coming up to his nipples, she was a tiny little woman.

“How are you?” she asked, closing the door behind them.

“Wonderful, really good.” he said with a big smile.

“Oh my, what happened? Happy Christmas?” she asked.

“You can say that.” he said with a giddy laugh. “Phil and I maybe had sex.”

“Maybe?” she sounded confused. “Do you not remember or?”

“Oh no,” Dan said, clearing that up, “I remember, it’s just we like got off together so I’m not sure what counts as sex like does someone have to be inside the other for it to count or was what we did just foreplay? I don’t know, but, we’re really really good.”

“I’m so happy for you Dan! Do you feel like you’re getting back together and you’re okay now?” she asked, an equally happy smile on her face.

“Yeah, the new year is going to bring a new us and I’m really excited.” he confirmed.

“I’m so glad to hear it.” she said, taking a moment to write down the date on her same yellow pad of paper. ‘December 27th, 2012.’

“I also finished a bunch of these thought things.” he said handing her the book.

She took the book from him and flipped through the pages, nodding as she read some of them. “You’re really in tune with your feelings.”

“Cause I know my brain is an asshole and none of that is actually what’s happening.” Dan said, sounding annoyed.

“Some people never understand that. They hear what their brain is saying and take it as fact but the fact that you’re already taking the thoughts and debunking them and identifying the types of thought patterns you’re having is wonderful Dan! This is so much growth!” she was so proud of him he wanted to cry. “The next step in all this is to also identify what triggers the thoughts so we can eventually condition your brain into understanding right then and there that its a bad thought or to train your brain to not getting those thought triggers one day.”

“We can do that?”

“Yes!” she said, overly chipper. “It’s the same way people train cats to ring a bell for treats or when teachers give children prizes for good work, it helps them do one thing in hopes of a reward. We just need to find out what your reward would be.”

“Could it be like ordering a pizza after a depressive episode cause me and Phil already do that.” he said.

“Exactly that.”

He got a little excited thinking about the progress he could make in the future, the decrease of bad thoughts and the increase of pizza. “I’m ready and willing to eat the sadness away.”

“It’s not the worst coping mechanism, lots of people do worse things as rewards but to each their own.” she said calmly, she probably saw a lot of crazy shit.

“I also wanted to talk to you today about new year’s resolutions.” Dan mentioned to her.

“Okay, what were you thinking?” she said, writing ‘resolutions 2013’ down with some underlines.

“Well the major one is I want to work on my happiness. I want to stop letting negativity in and get out of my comfort zone. I know the biggest problem in my life is I’m scared, I’m scared of being vulnerable and I’m scared of people knowing me and hating me but I want to move forward.” he said, clapping his hands together at the end with how passionate he felt about it.

“Is this for you or for Phil?” she asked.

“Me.” he said, half confused half angry. “We had a chat in November, and he said he gets it now. How what we have is ours and no one is entitled to know and they don’t deserve to know because we’re happy and that’s all that matters and I trust him enough to know he’s not going to change that. Nothing will make him want to do a big coming out if it means he loses me.” he explained. “Maybe one day in some far off year like twenty nineteen when it’s our tenth anniversary and we’re getting married or something crazy like that we’ll be out, but right now, we’re content.”

“I’m glad to hear that Dan.”

“But this year I want to do little things too like cut my hair and buy a nicer pillow just simple non life altering things that will make me happy for me.” he added. “Oh! And I’m getting a personal trainer, well both me and Phil are so that we can feel better. I read that a few hours a week will help my mental health and maybe I’ll even start liking avocados or something.”

“This year is going to be good for you Dan, I can already tell.”

 

On the tube home he put his headphones in, hitting shuffle on his entire song index. Knights of Cydonia by muse was the first thing to come on. “No one's gonna take me alive, the time has come to make things right, you and I must fight for our rights, you and I must fight to survive” he wanted to sing alone so desperately, but he didn’t want to look like a freak on a train full of people.

The lyrics made him smile. Him and Phil bonded over muse in the beginning, their first full conversation was about muse and their favorite albums and songs. He texted Phil a lyric to see what he’d do.

Dan: no one's gonna take me alive

Not even 2 minutes later he had a reply form Phil.

Phil: The time has come to make things right!!!!!

Dan: you and i must fight for our rights

Phil: You and I must fight to survive <3

Dan: i love you, skype tonight?

Phil: Yes! Love you too


	3. January to March 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi few things to note here. 
> 
> 1\. everything mentioned is based on real events that's why this chapter took so long, researching everything they've done has been fun and a challenge.  
> 2\. there are lots of references to depression and suicide so please beware and be careful when reading. it's very triggering.  
> 3\. i understand Phil's friend dying is not something to be romanticized, and i am not romanticizing his death, it's not cute it's traumatic and it changed Phil and the dynamic between them when dan was diagnosed. he doesn't want to lose another person to a silent disease  
> 4\. the therapy sessions are based on my own and the work i used was given to me by my counsellor and can be found at www.getselfhelp.co.uk
> 
> i hope you enjoy this chapter and i cant wait to write April to June <3

January. A fresh start. Or at least it was supposed to be.

They were reunited New Year's day, Phil coming home that morning and slipped right into Dan’s bed to hold him close. It startled him a bit at first when suddenly a slightly cold body was pressed up against him, but the breath on his shoulder and the kisses pressed to his neck reminded him of who it was. He settled right into it, waking up slowly in his arms.

“Good morning,” Dan whispered.

“I missed you so much.” was Phil’s reply.

“Missed you,” Dan said, groggy and deep. He rolled over and cuddled right into Phil’s neck. Breathing him in, he smelled like his mum’s house and his cologne.

Dan woke up more, they cuddled and talked about Phil’s trip and how weird it was to say goodbye to his family home one last time. “I’ll never be in that house again.”

“Yeah, I don’t like that thought.” Dan agreed.

“I wish you had of come with me, or just visited at the end. Some of my favourite memories in that place have you in them.” Phil said.

“Every memory I have of that place is a good one. I’m going to miss it.”

“You’ll come with me to the Isle once mum and dad move in right?” Phil asked, running his hands up and down dan’s back while he held him.

Dan pulled back a bit, straining his neck a little to look at him, “Yeah, let’s make some new memories there.” he said with a smile.

“But first, let's go make breakfast,” Phil said, kissing his cheek.

They spent the day together, on the couch watching TV and eating snacks. Dan’s dark cloud had been following him all day, he felt his anxiety bubbling away but his depression was at bay enough that he could enjoy Phil’s presence. Phil knew, he always did. He made sure to refill Dan’s water glass and ask him if he was hungry. ‘Cause while Dan loved to eat, when the thoughts were there he forgot about food.

 

 

Phil left the lounge to use the washroom, his phone on the armrest beside Dan started to vibrate showing a picture of his mum. “Hello, it’s Dan,” he answered.

“Oh hello dear what a surprise, how are you?” she asked, chipper as always. Just like Phil.

“I’m fine, thank you, how have you been? How was Christmas?” he asked.

“Oh wonderful, it was nice having the boys round and we had Martyn’s girlfriend over as well, she’s Swedish and lovely. Very musically gifted, you’ll love her next time you visit.” she carried on, she always spoke to him as if he was one of her own children now. “Um, where is Phil? I was just calling to make sure he got in okay.”

“He’s just popped off to the toilet, I didn’t want you to go to voicemail and worry about him.”

“Thank you, dear, I take it things are looking good?”

“Yes, things are very good. I’ve been getting better and Phil’s been lovely supporting me through it all,” he said, he could practically hear her smiling down the line. “Thank you.”

“For what child?” she asked.

“For making and raising such a wonderful man,” he said proudly.

“You’re going to make me cry, that is such a lovely thing to say, Daniel! We love you here, you are just as much my son now as Phil is. You make him happy, you’ve changed his life and we’re always going to love and support you my boy.” she said.

“Don’t make me cry in revenge Kath, you know I’m a softy,” he said with a laugh.

She laughed as well, “I love you Dan, tell Phil I love him as well and I’m glad he got in alright.”

“Will do, I love you too,” Dan said with a smile.

“Bye,” she said one last time before hanging up.

He sat there with a small smile on his face, a warmness in his heart radiating all thanks to another Lester who loved him.

“That was nice,” Phil said, peeking around the door in the lounge.

“Oh.” Dan said, his smile still lingering, “did you hear it all?”

Phil walked over to him and tackled him into the couch, wrapping his arms around him and kissing his cheeks. “Most of it,” he whispered. “I love you.”

Dan smiled more, wrapping his arms and legs around him fully and holding him there on the couch. “I love you too.”

-

Sometimes, life felt a little too much. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t like it either. He knew it was the depression and that it wasn’t his fault but that didn’t stop him from getting angry at himself after a few days of an episode. He wished he could be normal, or at least what people’s idea of what normal was. He wanted to wake up in the mornings and not want to cower away from the world under his sheets claiming he ‘didn’t feel good’ when he was physically fine.

He’d spent the day in his bed hating the world. His thoughts were dark and gloomy. If he was to speak about them surely he’d get locked up, or be looked down on, or worse no one would care. He felt useless and annoying, unloved and unneeded. So he lay there in his bed, blankets tucked up around his neck and nothing else on while he stared glossy eyed up at the ceiling. He wanted to die, just a little. Not enough to follow through but just enough to keep thinking about it.

Phil left him alone after the 3rd time he came in and Dan said nothing to him. He hadn’t been on his phone, he hadn’t checked his emails, he was basically dead to the world while very much alive in his bed. His body started to feel like it was floating at one point, he was clearly laying still but his brain and his muscles in his body were so numb they felt like they were being lifted, like his spirit actually left his body leaving him lifeless and drained.

He had, in his mind, a very unhealthy coping mechanism when he was like this. He’d read somewhere forever ago that orgasms were really good for serotonin release, and Brenda had told him not to be afraid to take a bit of “me time” which just meant that he masturbated twice that day. He was still empty, and overstimulated and felt even more pathetic than usual.

He reached into his pants to go once more, working his way back to full hardness he ran his thumb over the slit. He breathed in at the feeling, he was too sensitive from all he’d done that day. But still, he opened his laptop, the porn he was watching still in the incognito tab that was downsized in his dock. It didn’t take much, a few tugs while watching a beautiful woman getting fucked is what got him right to the edge. He looked away, listening to the noises but imagining how nice it would be to really get fucked. It had been too long and he was dying a bit.

He thought of Phil, it wasn’t unusual for that to happen. He quickened his strokes a bit and felt the familiar heat pool in his stomach. Reaching his free hand up to grip the headboard, he spread his legs a little and closed his eyes. Imagining he was being fucked hard. He came once more, a small pool of cum on his stomach and in his belly button.

He felt disgusting.

The pleasure didn’t last, his high was gone and the thoughts were right back in his head. The anxiety replacing the euphoria as if it was never there in the first place. Every single bad thought he’d been thinking that day coming right back, reminding him that he wasn’t allowed to be happy right now.

He huffed, shook his head to maybe come back to reality a bit.

He was fine, that’s what he kept saying; This is a phase in life that he’s working on, he’d be better soon. He said that most days when it was bearable but today, he didn’t believe it. He didn’t see a silver lining, he didn’t see any progress. He saw failure and disappointment in everything he was doing.

He failed his way out of university, dropping out instead of giving it another try. He ran away from his home to live with a boy only to fail on him too and break his heart. He couldn’t get out of bed to do his “job” even if it was just as simple as picking songs for a radio show they had on the 13th or filming a silly video. He dropped the ball and lost it somewhere in his mess of a life.

He sat up, wiping himself off with a tissue before putting his face in his hands. He shook his head again while covering his eyes. He felt like absolute shit. And he was fucking tired of it to say the least.

The hunger set in sometime around 4 hours ago. He’d sip on his water occasionally to forget it but he had to leave his room eventually that day. So he sucked it up, he walked to the bathroom to pee for the first time that day and brush his teeth. He felt so disgusting. So he showered for 5 minutes, letting the water run over him while he ran some soap over his body. He got out and wrapped himself in a towel.

He felt the same but he also wanted to be okay, so he forced himself to get dressed. He put on a new pair of underwear in his room, in the kitchen he found Phil’s hoodie in the dryer, still, a little warm like he’d only done a load an hour or so ago but didn’t want to fold anything. It was his soft zippered blue one, he wore it all the time in Manchester, so much so that it had little bobbles of fluff all over it from being worn so much. He put it on and zipped it up all the way.

Phil was in his room, either asleep or on his computer, it was almost midnight and he did get bored when Dan was like this. He opened the fridge to see some curry left over from Phil’s dinner and a note laid on top of it.

“For when you’re hungry later, I love you and I hope you’re okay.”

It made him want to cry a little.

He warmed it up, sitting down on the floor he brought his knees to his chest to eat his food. He still felt like shit and he couldn’t enjoy it in the slightest but he knew his body needed it. He drank some Ribena as well, taking a deep breath trying to calm down slightly as he eats, he didn’t feel okay at all. Everything was kind of a lot. He didn’t notice it but some tears had left his eyes.

He put the bowl on the counter, he didn’t bother to bin the rest or clean it out. He just put it down and walked right down the hall and into Phil’s room. Phil looked up from his laptop, his hair pushed back and his glasses on. He looked startled and confused.

“Are you alright?” he asked, shaken a bit.

Dan shook his head no. Phil put his laptop on his side table and got out of the bed, walking around it over to Dan. he wrapped him in his arms and held him. Dan didn’t hug back for a moment, slowly raising his arms around Phil and suddenly he was crying. Phil ran his hands up and down Dan’s back, shushing him.

“Want to come and lie down with me? Get comfortable?” Phil whispered.

Dan nodded, pulling back and walking with Phil to his side of the bed, Phil tucked him in, quickly going to his side and getting in. He turned his lamp off and rolled over to look at Dan, Dan did the same. In the dark, feeling safer than he normally would knowing Phil was there looking at him. He steadied his breathing and just kept looking at him. The light from the kitchen travelling into the room to give him enough light to see Phil’s face.

“Talk to me or don’t, I don’t mind I just want to be here for you,” he whispered.

“I want to die,” Dan said before he could think about stopping it.

He saw Phil blink, and keep blinking, looking at him as if he told him something unbelievable and he kind of did. For Phil he had no idea of the thoughts in Dan’s head, no clue about the crazy things that went on in there but for Dan this was just a Monday.

“You want to kill yourself?” he asked, his voice was soft and crushed.

“No.”

“Than what do you mean?” his voice picked up to more of a worry than before.

He thought about it, moving in closer to Phil and ducking down to cuddle into his neck more. He wanted to say it the right way. He let out a deep breath and close his eyes. “I wish I was dead, not in a; I’m going to kill myself or walk in front of a bus tomorrow way but more of an; I wish I wasn’t born or that I could simply stop existing and this pain would go away.” he felt the tears building behind his eyes as he dug his face deeper in Phil’s neck. “I’m not tired of living, I’m tired of my life.”

Phil was quiet. His hand was running up and down Dan’s back, and the hot breath leaving his nose ruffled his hair. He was breathing a bit deeper than normal, Dan felt his blood pumping faster in his neck. He pressed a kiss to the vein.

“I want you to come to me more when you feel this low, I don’t want you to ever leave and I know that’s selfish because you’re the one hurting but when you hurt I hurt too,” Phil said in one long ramble.

“Why do you love me so much?” Dan asked, half because he couldn’t understand it and a half because he wanted to know.

“Why do you love me so much?” Phil replied, rubbing his back softly.

He was right. He always was. He loved Phil more than he could explain, with every fibre of his being, and for some unknown reason they’d been thrown at each other by the universe and it worked. He’d die for Phil and Phil would die for him. It would always be like that.

“You’re never alone.” Phil reminded him. “I don’t know what you’re going through, but every day I wish I could invent the machine and replace your thoughts with what I think about you. I want to hit reset in there and make sure you never hurt ever again.”

Dan held him tighter, he loved listening to Phil and the crazy ideas he had and how he was never afraid to tell him his thoughts. How Phil trusted him with everything and would always be there for him. It felt nice.

“Thank you, it’s nice to know that you love me,” Dan whispered.

Dan pulled back to look at him in the eyes once more. “I do.” Phil leaned in and kissed him softly, raising his hand up Dan’s back to rest in his hair, keeping their faces pressed together.

They kissed for a while, just holding one another close with their lips pressed together, over and over. It wasn’t heated, there was no real reason for it, it made Dan feel more like one person, it made him happier, gave him the serotonin he’d craved that whole day.

“Thank you,” Dan whispered into his mouth. Pulling back slightly,

“For?”

“Checking on me, bringing me water, doing laundry so I could put this sweater on, making me dinner. Listening to me and holding me and making me feel okay again.” he listed, kissing Phil between each thing he was thankful for.

“Anything for you. I’m glad you’re okay.” Phil said, kissing him again. Then he pulled back, “also, how many times did you masturbate today? I swear I heard you going for hours.” he whispered against Dan’s lips.

Dan laughed; a good hearty laugh that he hadn’t had in a while. “Not enough.” he joked.

“I didn’t want to feel like a perv and get off to you getting off so I’ve just been struggling with this guy for the last few hours,” Phil admitted, taking Dan’s hand that was resting on his chest and lowering it down to his bottoms.

Dan smiled, he loved feeling him. “How would you like me to help,” he asked softly.

“Lie back,” Phil instructed.

He did just that, thanking any god that there was for what was about to happen. Phil took his pants off, exposing his hard cock in all it’s glory and got on top of him, sitting on his crotch. He ran his hands down Dan’s jumper covered chest, pulling the zipper down and exposing his bare chest. He had a thing for fucking Dan in his clothes, Dan picked up on that years ago.

He pulled Dan out of his boxers, pulling the elastic under his balls and leaving it there. He was semi-hard, it’d been through a lot that day and he didn’t know how much more he could take. Phil took both of them in his hand, and Dan’s dick twitched right to full hardness at the simple feeling.

The skin on skin. The drag of Phil’s clammy hands on their hot cocks was a spiritual experience that he couldn’t explain. He missed him, he missed everything about his dick. What he missed most was having it buried deep in his ass, hitting his bundle of nerves and making him come undone while staying as quiet as possible in Phil’s parent's place.

He missed when he was happier, when they were together and when everything felt simple. When he had a plan and he followed it and he worked through the anxiety. Before the depression hit him this hard.

Before he felt sick, in a way he couldn’t explain to anyone.

He started to cry. Phil stopped, he pulled him up into a sitting position and held him in his arms, shushing him while he cried. “What’s wrong?” he asked softly.

“I’m sorry I ruin everything.” He let out in a sob.

“No,” Phil said, holding his face in his hands. “If you’re not okay that comes first. Fuck everything else. I love you okay.”

“I miss how it used to be,” he whispered.

“How what used to be?”

“I miss how happy and carefree we were and how we had sex all the time and nothing mattered cause we had plans for the future so we could be with each other in the present.” Dan spat out.

“We can do that again you know.” Phil reminded him. “We can set goals, and we can have sex whenever you’re ready, and we can set aside a day of the week just for us. Date night or a cuddle on the couch and watch Buffy night. Whatever you want to feel like you have some control over your life.”

“Yeah?” Dan asked, swallowing back his tears.

“Anything for you my love,” Phil said, hugging him close. Keeping Dan pressed to him.

When he pulled back, they were both soft again. Dan hated that he was glad, he couldn’t handle the emotions that came with any kind of sex tonight. Phil got off him and put his bottoms back on. Dan tucked himself back in his pants and zipped his hoodie up.

Dan reached for Phil’s right hand, pulling him with him as he laid on his side so Phil could spoon into him. He left a few kisses on Dan’s shoulder before whispering a goodnight.

“I love you,” Dan whispered.

“I love you more.”

-

Dan blew off January’s therapy session. Between the depression and the radio show prep he really wasn’t able to leave the house an extra time for Brenda. He did his liveshows on Tuesdays, he tried posting videos on Fridays, he did all the work he had to do and she was proud of that. She understood why he couldn’t come in but she asked him to email her how he was doing every Wednesday, as honest as he could be, and she would send him suggestions or tips back.

Brenda wanted him to get into meditation. She thought that if he was able to sit and calm down, even if just for a few minutes, his mind would have that shut down that he needed to feel okay. He was at a point in his struggle where anything that gave him a moment of peace was something he would try. It might also help with his sleeping, while he and Phil were back together they still weren’t sleeping together every night, and the nights Dan was alone were the ones he had the hardest time with.

But January wasn’t as hard as he thought, the depressive episode was bad and it felt like it lasted forever but at least he was free that week when it happened. He did the radio show full time on Sundays now and he felt accomplished and busy enough not to fully spiral again. He had all the time he wanted to just do nothing and try and relax his mind.

Phil’s birthday was coming, which meant a week of dinners with friends, cake and social outings that Dan had to be up for. But, it was all with people he cared about. And that included Phil. Celebrating Phil for the wonderful growing man that he was was worth it all, he secretly loved Phil week but he’d never tell him that.

Bryony and Wirrow came over the day before his birthday, 3 bottles of wine and a pizza for each of them. They sat in the lounge all together having a catch-up chat, bryony made him a new quilt for his birthday and wirrow got him a new buffy art concept book. They knew him so well it made Dan’s heart swell. He couldn’t stop smiling at Phil the whole time.

“What’s going on with you?” Bryony asked him in the kitchen as Dan was filling the dishwasher.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re oddly happy, and I don’t think it’s just the wine or the party.” She said with a cheeky grin, of course, she knew.

Dan shook his head, smiling a little. “I’m happy today. Everyone I care about is in one room and we’re all happy and it’s making me happy.”

“You fucked didn’t you?”

“No!”

She sighed and placed her hand over her eyes. “Oh good, I was worried you rushed back into things.”

“We are just the same as we were around Halloween, no label but I love him and he loves me,” he said softly before biting his lip after the words fell from his lips. It was strange telling people he loved Phil, even if they already knew.

And Bryony really knew. She’s one of the few people who’s heard and walked in on them. It’s their own fault really, it’s what they got for deciding to sleep together while on her pull out couch in 2009.

“But no sex?” she asked.

“Not yet.” he shook his head, “but we did fool around before Christmas.” he admitted, “and the other day kinda. And we might tonight.”

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and nodded, “gross.” she finally said. “But it’s good progress.”

“Exactly.” Dan agreed. “How are you and Chris?”

“Ooh you called him Chris,” she said, changing the topic.

“Well the other Chris isn’t here to get it confused.” he spat back, “now spill.”

“We’re working on it,” she said softly. “Now where’s that cake you bought?”

The cake was a hit, the board games they played made them all cry laugh, and eventually, they ran out of wine. That’s when they knew it was time to stop, time to call their friends a cab and send them on their way.

On wobbly legs Dan put all the wine bottles back in the kitchen before getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth and washing his face. He got 2 cups of water and a bottle of ibuprofen and met Phil in his bedroom. Dan got almost completely naked, crawling into bed beside Phil and noticed he was the same.

“Goodnight,” Dan said, cuddling into him.

“I love you.” Phil said, “thanks for tonight.”

“I love you too.” Dan smiled against his chest. “Just wait for tomorrow.”

They woke up on Phil’s birthday hungover and hazy, he almost forgot that it was his actual birthday for a moment. Phil was spooned into Dan’s back, his dick half hard and resting against the back of Dan’s leg. It made him smile softly, backing up into it.

“Morning,” Phil whispered in his ear.

“Happy birthday,” Dan replied, interest burning in his groin.

“I wanted to save this present for later, but,” Dan said, rolling over into him. Pushing Phil onto his back and climbing on top of him. “I could give it to you now if you want.”

“No,” Phil said, running his hands up Dan’s thighs lightly to rest them on his hips. “Think about it a bit more. I’ll still be here when you’re ready.”

Dan smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you more,” he replied, taking Dan’s hands in his, he played with Dan’s fingers. “I don’t know if I’m ready either,” he whispered.

“Why?” Dan asked.

“It feels like the first time again.”

“It kinda is, we’re not who we were the first time or the last time. This is new.” Dan agreed.

“So, I’m a little nervous,” Phil admitted.

“Well,” he smirked, “if I remember anything from all the sex we’ve had, it’s that it’s always been amazing.”

“You know what else is amazing?” Phil asked and Dan shrugged; not knowing, “cake for breakfast.”

-

February 1st he had just over 990,000 subscribers. Each day he watched it tick higher and higher, and each day the tight knot in his throat got tighter and burned a little hotter. He felt like he couldn’t breathe the closer he got to 1 million. It was starting to get more terrifying every time he went to turn on the camera knowing a million sets of eyes would be on him. He played it off as no big deal in liveshows when people asked how he felt about being so close, but deep down he couldn’t breathe.

Sitting down with Brenda felt like coming home somehow, even though he did everything to not meet with her last month he missed her. She was like a friend, someone he could talk to with no judgement or pain. She would never hurt him or stab him in the back, she had the best advice and was always looking out for him. She was who he needed.

That thought made him feel shitty just a bit however, a lot of his feelings were all revolving around Phil. Phil was his best friend and his partner, and for some unknown reason, he couldn’t tell him any of the things he told Brenda.

“How are we today?” she asked.

“I’ve had the craziest month,” he said, shaking his head thinking back.

She pulled out a large stack of paper. “I figured as much,” she said softly, smiling at him like she always did. “From your emails, you mentioned a lot of anxiety and that you had an episode that was really bad.”

He nodded, “I think it’s work and wanting to be great for the BBC and then youtube is stressing me out cause I’m not sure if I’m enjoying my own content right now but clearly people are because I’m about to hit one million subscribers and I kinda hate that.”

“Why? That’s a huge accomplishment.” Brenda was confused like she normally was when the things he was thinking left his brain.

“I’m such a sympathetic and emotional idiot that I feel like I don’t deserve to hit it before Phil, as if it’s a competition and I know he’s better than me and he deserves it and not me. I feel like I cheated somehow.” Dan said, watching Brenda go to speak, “and it’s so dumb cause we have never been doing this for the numbers, it’s just been fun doing this together and sharing with the world and making content so I feel kinda ungrateful and shitty.”

“Is this what caused the spiral into your episode?”

“Kinda.”

Brenda wrote it down and he thought of how he was going to explain it. “Is it bad I’m afraid to tell you everything cause I don’t want you to think I’m crazy?”

“That’s normal.” She said with a nod, “but you’re not crazy, remember?”

He took a deep breath. “I want to die. And not like I want to actually do something wild and kill myself but I want to just die. To stop existing and be free.” he felt himself get emotional, he knew how bad that sounded. “So like on my way here I thought if I was in a car accident and it killed me I’d be fine with that, or if the lift broke and sent me flying to the ground floor and killed me instantly that would be wonderful. But I don’t want to kill myself.”

“You have depression. That’s the most normal thing a person with depression would say. You’re hurting and you want an escape.” she explained. It made him feel a little better, but still scared of himself.

“Do you want to try going on medication?” she asked.

“Part of me does, the other part of me is ashamed that I can’t do this on my own,” he admitted. “Like I want to use mindfulness and exercise and all that shit to get better but I have no willingness to start that yet, I’m just drowning in this and it’s all too much.”

“I’m going to write you a prescription for a low dose of a very common first-time anti-depressant called Citalopram. And if you want to fill it you can, if not that’s your choice.”

“If I did take it what’s it like?” he asked.

“Lot’s of people like it, however, it does make you retain water weight as well as it makes you perspire more than normal, drowsiness and dry mouth are also common. But it’s different for everyone,” she said softly, calming his nerves. “And the first week to ten days is rough, you get most the symptoms right away and then they fade off, however, if they keep up you call the office right away and I’ll see if we should go up a dose or come off it entirely.”

“I don’t think I’m ready yet.” he spat out.

“Do you want to share why?” she asked.

“Things are shitty but they’re also good at the same time.” he started, he didn’t want to think about his next words he just wanted to go. “Me and Phil are working so hard on everything and the BBC are loving us and the views on the show each week is through the roof. I don't want to start this and be dead during a show or put on a fake personality while I don’t feel like myself.”

He paused for a minute, they stared at each other while he thought a bit more of what he was holding back till he finally said it. “Also, I don’t know who I am if I’m not depressed, as weird as that sounds. I feel like it kinda drives me, I want to be better than this thing that is trying to hold me back and I want to do it alone.”

“Okay.” she nodded. “Well, that sounds like an amazing goal.”

He smiled, “thank you.”

“It’s actually funny that you brought that up because I have some sheets for you about dealing with distress,” she explained, reaching for the packet of things she set down in the beginning. “Explain what it’s like when you have an episode.”

“It’s like the whole world desaturates,” he explained. “I feel trapped in my bed with no energy to do anything. I get mad at myself for being like that and sometimes I know I could get up but instead, I stay in bed and hate myself more. Other times I feel like I’m stuck to the bed but my body is dizzy and there's this energy that feels like I’m being pulled forward. And I can’t eat, I drink water when I’m hungry but can’t leave my bed. And this is embarrassing but, I masturbate to try and bring myself a tiny bit of serotonin to feel better.”

“That’s normal and actually something in this packet.” she told him, “but hearing that part about being stuck but feeling like you’re pulled forward, do you feel like you’re outside your body or looking at yourself from an outsiders point of view?”

“Not the outsiders part but I do feel like I’m not in my body.”

“When you have anxiety, it’s your body creating the fight or flight chemicals in your body. When it gets so intense, your body thinks it’s been in a mass trauma and you shut down as if you’re getting ready to bleed out or almost die. It’s an extremely intense feeling of leaving the body. We call it depersonalization. And it sometimes happens in severe depressive episodes.” her explanation made Dan feel astounded because that explained how he felt entirely.

“That’s what I feel!”

“So this should help in that situation.” she handed him a copy of the package of papers. “The third page is where I want you to look, Distress Tolerance is used to help you cope and survive during a crisis, that being an episode, be it the start or end of one. Radical Acceptance means being willing to experience a situation as it is rather than what you want it to be. It’s not seeing it as good or giving yourself permission to be stuck in the situation forever, it’s just used to accept that this is happening and we can get out of it because we have before.”

Dan nodded along to the whole explanation, reading the page as she went on.

“Page four, IMPROVE the moment. Imagine a safe space, it could be anything. Find the Meaning in the situation, why are you going into this crisis? Prayer just means meditation or spiritual experience you follow like when you and Phil buy a pizza after a stressful day. Relaxation is watching tv or reading a book or something you enjoy. One thing at a time. Breathe. Shower. Eat. Take your time.

Vacation is ‘me’ time. So that’s the masturbation or anything on pages five through seven. And then E is an encouragement. Nice and helpful self-talk is always a good way to calm down. Verbally reminding yourself that you are safe, you are fine, this is a thing that comes in waves and you can and will get better. Stand up and walk around while telling yourself you’re okay and verbally tell yourself your plan of action.”

“This is amazing.” was all Dan could say.

“I want you to read the first seven, but if you get through the whole thing for next time that would be amazing too.” she smiled wide, as if she knew Dan would love it.

They went on to gab about different things: his goals for the next month, what he was working on for videos and how he was planning on celebrating 1 Million when the time came. And finally, right before the end when she was scheduling him in for his next appointment, “Can I bring Phil next time?” he asked.

“Sure!” she was extra enthusiastic. “I would love to hear his side of things and witness how you interact, from the way you talk about him I feel like he’s a huge help and you both hold each other up and I’d like to see it.”

Dan smiled, “yeah, he’s pretty great.”

“Do you want it to be a couples session or just him sitting in on yours?” she asked.

“I think a couples counselling session would be really good. Cause we’re really good, I’m very close to allowing myself to be happy with him, and I want to come here and talk with a mediator and settle everything we wouldn’t talk about alone.”

“Okay!” she cheered, “I’ve got you in on February twenty-seventh.”

“We’ll be here.”  
-

February 4th, a little after midnight he and Phil sat in the lounge refreshing Dan’s channel together. Phil had a party popper ready and a bottle of champagne on the coffee table ready to be popped. They picked it up on the way home from the radio, noticing he was only a few thousand away from hitting the biggest milestone of his career thus far. The numbers changed on every refresh, jumping back and forth as people subscribed and unsubscribed wanting to be his millionth.

One final refresh and there it was 1,000,007 was on his screen.

His eyes welled up, Phil popped the party popper right beside him. A huge smile spread across his face as a single tear fell down his cheek. He did it. He put his laptop on the coffee table in shock, not knowing what to do, Phil tackled him into the couch. Kissing his cheek the same way he did after the cut in the first video they ever filmed together.

He pulled back up to a sitting position. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Scared, elated, sorry,” he said.

“Why sorry?” Phil asked, confused.

Dan let out a long breath, “YouTube was your thing, you took me in and helped me learn how to make videos and let me crash at your place and paid my rent for a while. You’ve done so much, you deserve to have hit a million before me.”

“Dan,” He said, reaching out to put both hands on Dan’s cheeks and steered his face towards him, making eye contact. He was soft and gentle and caring, the way he’d always been. “YouTube has never been about the numbers for either of us.” he reminded him.

“Yeah it’s cool to hit milestones and to grow as big as we have, but at the end of the day this is a fun thing I get to do, I get to create with no boundaries and share what I want with the world while getting paid for it!” He kept on, enthusiastic as ever.

He ran his thumb lightly over Dan’s cheek, “And it brought me you.”

That made Dan smile. Phil pulled him in and kissed him softly. “Now let's celebrate you, my turn will come.”

-

Pancake day that year was on the 12th, they decided to celebrate it as their valentines day. The day had been kinda ruined for them and they didn’t want to think about that. Instead, they combined their love for each other with their love for Pancakes.

Phil ran to the store the night before and stocked up on fresh fruit, getting 3 boxes of American pancake mix as well as a new frying pan because they really needed a new one. They set everything in the kitchen and even pre-chopped the fruit so the morning would be easier for them.

Dan woke up that morning to lots of kisses. Phil kissed all over his face and his neck and upper body. It was all sweet and innocent until it wasn’t. Hands roaming, hot breath, grinding and moaning. They had a little fooling around session to start their day off right. Still no sex, but some pretty great orgasms as an appetizer before their pancakes.

The two of them in their pj’s and aprons in the kitchen. Phil’s had a man clad in a speedo, it was very large and not just the apron. It was something they’d love to post online but they knew it would get flagged for pornographic content if they did so.

They got flour and mix everywhere. All over the counter and stove, in Dan’s hair and Phil had a nice floury handprint on his butt. It was a good fricken morning to say the least.

They took all the pancakes and all the toppings to the lounge, they set everything on the table and watched the newest episode of Game of Thrones together. It was possibly the best way they could spend the day together.

They had pancakes again for a late lunch, they ordered in burgers from the restaurant across the street for dinner and had more pancakes before bed. In bed they cuddled, sharing sappy love confessions and feeling the way they did when they first got together. They couldn’t have asked for a better day with each other.

-

Sitting beside Phil in Brenda’s office with her staring back at them was the weirdest thing to Dan. His heart was in his throat and he felt anxious enough he could shit his pants. He didn’t know what Phil was going to say and he didn’t know what Brenda was going to ask him. For all he knew, they could fight today and ruin everything more than before.

“Hello.” she started, her perfect pearly smile calming his nerves a bit, he trusted her. He really did, but his mind only knew worst cases scenarios where everything went to shit because that’s what he was used to. “Phil, it’s very nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you as well! Dan’s told me how much you help and he’s been a lot happier since he’s seen you.” Phil replied, chipper and excited he wobbled on his seat to get comfortable.

They weren’t at her desk this time, he couldn’t rest his arms and fidget with the things on her desk. They sat on the couch near the window, side by side. Phil had his leg crossed over the other while he fiddled with his thumbs in his lap. Dan played with an elastic band he brought, knowing he’d be in a seat he wasn’t used to.

“I know Dan’s side of things, and I believe he’s told you his side of his struggles as well, probably not in as much detail but still, you know,” she said with a small laugh. “But I’d like to know yours. Feelings, thoughts, reasons for reactions. All of it.”

Phil looked to Dan, a look of fear in his eyes that Dan knew all too well. He nodded and placed a hand on Phil’s knee, grounding him a bit. He’s not diagnosed but if Dan had a say, he’d say he had anxiety. He’d never been one to share feelings well, at least not with new people.

“From meeting him to now or the breakup or the depression?” Phil questioned.

“Tell your story, whatever that may be, we can start there and work into any discussion you two want to have. I know Dan wanted to use this as a sort of mediator experience so you two could talk in a safe environment about things that might not come up at home.” Brenda said, as cryptic as ever.

“She knows my history with boys and coming out, my family how we met and the video and December. Tell your feelings about the last 4 years if you want.” Dan said with a small smile.

Phil took a deep breath, Dan watched him carefully. He could tell the cogs were moving inside his head, spinning and searching for a place to start. “All I wanted to do was love him.”

“I wanted to tell him he was my world, the only person I’ll ever love and how meaningful every moment we shared up to that point had been. We agreed on no gifts that Valentine’s Day because what do you get the person who deserves the whole world and then some? I’ve never been one to share my feelings, I’m very quiet about love and that makes this hard.” He rambled, swallowing and breathing before talking again.

“I never even told my parents I loved them unless they were going on a trip or I wouldn’t see them for a while because I don’t like to be vulnerable. Dan changed that. Suddenly with him I became a sappy mess, I told him all my secrets and I let him into my heart knowing full well he had a girlfriend and this might just be him questioning and that I could lose him.

“But I let him in, and I fell in love with him. He’s the first person I’ve ever truly loved and he’s going to be the only person I truly love regardless of what happens between us. From the moment I held him in my arms the first time I knew something was different with him, it wasn’t like hugging a friend for the first time, I’ve met plenty of internet friends and the first hug never, ever felt like that.

“ I showed him the city that day, I took him to my favourite spots, saving the best for last. We went up on the Manchester eye, and at the highest point, it stopped. I went to talk to him and he kissed me, and as I said in that video I filmed for him, my heart flipped and I knew I was in love with him.” he bit his lip. That was a lot.

“Okay, wow. You two are very similar.” Brenda said, taking a sip of her coffee. “If you want to share your feelings on now, the past year and your feelings, in general, you can.”

“This year was hard,” he said, not waiting at all to get into it. “Actually it’s been hard for me since twenty eleven. Dan was in my lounge studying and I was playing a video game and he just lost it. He threw his textbooks and had a full freak out styles panic attack. He kept saying that he couldn’t do it over and over again and he was scaring me so much. Then he dropped out of school and moved in with me and he wasn’t sleeping well.

“Four different doctors all said that he showed signs of depression and the first time he shook it off, the second time he did research, the third he was in denial and then finally he came to you. But there was so much between the third and fourth time. His family was being stalked, the video leaked, we had taken a label off things thinking that it would be easier to hide it and go back to normal around people but it made it worse.”

Dan didn’t know Phil’s feelings in this detail. He was closed off to everyone. He was a puzzle with a million and one locks just to open the box let alone put it together. Dan had undone a few locks, taken the chains off and started to know him. He’d be figuring him out for the rest of his life, but today made him feel like he might get in a lot more.

“And why do you think it made it worse?” Brenda asked.

“From September when the video was leaked to November when we got rid of the label Dan and I tried to just blow it off pretend it didn’t exist and give a nice explanation that it wasn’t real and leave it at that. It worked for a while. Then we got ‘popular’ and people talked about it and the few copies of it were shared between fans on different forums and Dan and I agreed to drop the label to feel less like a couple around the internet and maybe then we’d stop coming across as a couple.

“But Dan took it too far I think. And I told him that, we constantly fought about how mean he was getting, not just to me in person but about me online. He said some hurtful things that, even if I’d never been his boyfriend, would have still hurt me as a friend.”

Dan’s heart was pumping very fast, hearing Phil’s words again after months hurt. Hearing them completely calm with a touch of sadness in his voice cut deeper than when he screamed them at him.

“I don’t want to say I let it go on for months cause I didn’t, I put up with it and I built the anger up to the point where one day I lost it on him, but the words didn’t come out right. I didn’t say ‘stop saying mean things about me online it hurts’, instead, I said ‘stop being a little bitch and accept the fact your gay’. And he packed up his things and almost left a week later.” Phil said with a huff.

“I didn’t know that part,” Brenda said, making Phil turn and look at him with puzzled eyes.

“I knew I fucked up.” was all Dan could say in a choked sob he didn’t realize he’d been holding back. “I hurt him and I deserved it. I left what he said out because I’ve done worse, I feel more at fault than anything and I didn’t want to come in here and make him a bad guy when he wasn’t.”

“But you aren’t either Dan. You’re human with feelings and you’re growing and learning.” Phil said, putting a hand out for Dan to hold.

“You two are growing together, in the public eye and you’re also queer. It’s going to be tough but you’re doing it together.” Brenda said, drawing their attention back to her. “I haven’t seen a couple fight, break up and then get back together on their own with the planning you put in or respect you two have shown to each other.”

“I love him,” they said at the same time.

She smiled. “Good. Now Phil, you said that Dan’s panic attack type freak out scared you and I want to know why exactly?”

Phil ran his thumb over Dan’s lightly, over and over again for a moment while he thought. “I had a roommate in college, his name was Kevin and he had panic attacks and depression,” he said softly.

“Did it affect you in any way?” Brenda asked, but Dan already knew where he was going.

“Yeah.” he swallowed hard enough Dan heard it.

“Okay.” she looked at him puzzled, waiting for a response. “How does Dan’s depression affect you?” she said, changing the question seeing if it would be easier on him.

“Dan is my best friend and the love of my life and I can’t lose another person I care about,” he spoke softly with tears in his eyes.

“Oh,” Brenda whispered.

“Kevin killed himself in our second year of uni. It was sudden and no one saw it coming. We all knew he had depression and he was taking meds for it and he was seemingly fine. He would party and tell jokes and he was genuinely so funny and kind and I loved being his friend, he was the best friend I had in school. So much so we got a house together the second year but he passed right before exams.” Phil explained softly. It had been 6 years, but it still hurt him clearly.

Dan squeezed his hand a bit tighter, a silent I love you that he needed. “And so when Dan was told he had depression the first time and he came home laughing about it, I freaked out.”

“You what?” Dan said, not knowing this.

“Do you remember that night you woke up cause I wasn’t in bed and you found me in the lounge on my computer and I made you go back to sleep saying I was just checking something that had been worrying me?” Phil asked.

“Yeah?”

“You were worrying me,” Phil said softly. “Depression took my friend, silently while I was asleep in the next room. And I was not going to lose you. I looked up all the symptoms and the signs. I googled what to look for in suicidal people and I kept an eye on you. For months I woke up every time you rolled over because I was worried you were getting up to do something. And I texted you all day when we weren’t together to make sure you were fine and I couldn’t breathe when you didn’t reply.”

“Phil.” Dan cried, tears streaming down his face.

“The second time when you researched depression and I remember you saying ‘shit this is exactly how I feel’ my heart fucking broke!” Phil cried back. “That’s when we made the rules, we made sure you slept on time and you had things to do. That you weren’t stuck in your head and that you stayed healthy and okay. I didn’t make the rules just to make you do more work and help you be a better youtuber, I made them to help keep you alive.”

Dan hugged him. Holding him close but it wasn’t close enough. He wanted to be glued to him, he wanted to be absorbed into him. He fucking loved that man and everything he did for him.

“The third time?” she asked, interrupting the moment.

Phil pulled back, sniffling and regaining a bit of his composure. “The third time he got angry like it was a mistake like it had taken a huge part from him and it was almost like he was scared of that label on top of everything else.”

“Brenda you have no idea.” Dan chipped in.

“He was angry. This is when the comments started online and he went a bit mad. We stopped sleeping in the same bed, he’d slam his door randomly, I could breathe too loud and he’d get aggravated. And it lasted a while before I yelled at him.”

“What was it you said?” Brenda pried.

“We were in Vegas, and we’d been drunk most the day and I tried holding his hand in a crowd and he pushed me. So back in our hotel room I asked him what was wrong and he told me all about how I can’t touch him in public and he can’t look gay and people can’t speculate.” He explained.

Dan hated himself, he hated how he hurt Phil. He hated it all.

“And I told him to stop being a little bitch and accept the fact that he was gay. He kinda just shut down, he sat on the bed and looked so sad, and I felt like shit cause I’ve never hatefully called him a name before. I’ve called him names playing video games and that one time he asked me to in bed but like, never like this.” he said, a shade of pink on his cheeks, half in embarrassment, half in anger with himself. “I’ve been out as bisexual since high school, my mum knew and my close friends knew. I went into uni and was open and upfront about it even though I lied and told everyone I wasn’t a virgin when I was. I’ve never been ashamed of it and I’ve never taken it back, so when he took 8 steps back and started saying he was straight and making comments about me being gross and just a friend, not even his best friend anymore, it hurt.”

“And then we had angry sex and you cried after. And it was the second time you cried after sex, and I knew I fucked up.” Dan said softly, playing with his elastic band in his lap.

“I cried the first time we slept together because I knew I loved him and I cried that time cause I thought it was over,” Phil said.

“I thought that too. Cause you said you couldn’t be around me anymore if you were supposed to fall out of love with me.” Dan explained the rest.

“And that’s when Dan thought he had to leave?” Brenda asked.

Phil hummed and Dan nodded.

She was quiet, they all were. Dan could only hear his blood pumping in his ears and the ticking of the clock on the wall that showed they only had 10 minutes left. “But you compromised. Dan came home, you made another set of rules, you found a place here and Dan came to me for therapy. You have been kind to each other, you’ve been loving and understanding, you’ve talked alone and with me to uncover your true thoughts and feelings.” she said. A smile on her face that spread from ear to ear, she was always proud of Dan.

“So my last question would be what do you want moving forward?” she asked.

“I want a five-year plan.” Dan spat out.

“A what?” Phil asked.

“I want to go home and sit down and plan where we see ourselves in five years. Future projects, ideas, personal things. You’re going to be with me for the rest of my life and I’d like to talk about what each of us wants, I want to support your dreams while you support mine and work together on the future.” Dan explained.

“Okay,” Phil said with a nod.

“Are you two normally planners?” Brenda asked.

“Oh yeah,” Phil said enthusiastically. “We have a chore wheel in the kitchen and our office has a big pin board with video ideas and things for the radio show. Dan loves to plan step by step for videos, almost as if it was a movie script. I always make sure when we go out somewhere we have an itinerary. I even plan board game nights a little too intensely.”

“What is one thing you’d want to put on the plan?” Brenda asked him.

“I want to open up,” Dan said softly, almost too low to be heard.

“Really?” Phil sounded so surprised.

“Slowly though. I don’t want to be afraid to look at you or sit beside you. I want to make more videos with you and put you back in my stories and more than just my flatmate but my best friend. And maybe one day my partner.” he explained softly, only looking at Phil.

“And what do you want Phil.” Brenda cut in.

“I want to get engaged,” he said, not even blinking.

“Between now and twenty eighteen, sure.” Dan smiled.

“So I think we’ll leave it here. But, Phil would you maybe want to come to your own sessions?” She asked softly, placing her notepad on the table and standing.

“Um, for what?” Phil asked while they stood up.

“It sounds like you might have some PTSD,” she said with a small smile, lips pressed together tightly as she looked at him.

He sighed, “okay, I’ll make an appointment.”

 

At home, they sat down with a notepad and a few pens. He sighed deeply and relaxed his shoulders, looking at Phil as if to say ‘let’s do this’ he picked up the pen and started to write.

Dan and Phil’s 5 Year Plan.

“Have you ever heard of conditioning?” Dan asked.

“Like giving a dog treats for doing good work so eventually he does things on its own without the incentive?” Phil questioned.

“Yeah that, I want to do that to them kinda. Like over the next five years we’ll have done so many coupley things that they just assume, they don’t wonder or theorize they just get it.” Dan explained.

“And how do we do that.”

“This year I’ll stop building a wall between the real me and them. I’m going to stop pretending I’m some macho straight guy but not drastically like I’m not going to start wearing nail polish and go full flamboyantly gay. I just want to stop being fake.” he spoke passionately, in a way he knew Phil would see that he was serious.

“I’m not going to change anything yet, I feel like my queerness is still known regardless of what you’ve said this last year,” Phil added.

“You kept the fake story of how we met in your draw my life, so I’ll have to do the same in mine but one day maybe I can tell them the truth, how I stalked you till you loved me.” she smiled.

Phil laughed at him, “they’re gonna eat that up.”

“And over time, if we pretend to fuck up every once and a while and give them hints they’ll maybe slowly get it,” Dan said.

“Like what?”

“I have a video I want to make, about how messy my room is to be like relatable and shit. What if I pan the camera too the mess and something conspicuous is there. Like one of your shirts or something? Then they’d see it and go wild but now since everything has happened I see them making theories but trying to make us not see it, which means they’ll try to make us think they don’t know when we know that they know.”

“Okay, this sounds like that episode of friends.” Phil cut in.

“Exactly!” Dan half shouted. “One day, they’ll just know!”

“But till then this is our thing,” Phil said softly.

“It’ll always be our thing, we’ll always know the truths and the inside stories. We’ll know how it happened and how much we love each other and that will always be for us to know, they’ll just know we’re together but nothing more.” Dan assured him, reaching a hand across the table to hold Phil’s.

Phil smiled, “one thing that would probably make them think we’re together would be if we always talked about the future as if we’ll be doing everything together. Like if we talk about future houses and make it known we’re still going to be living together then they’ll get it.”

“If we tell them we want to adopt a dog together then they’ll get it,” Dan added.

“We can start getting hotel rooms with one bed in them and they’ll either think we’re together or we got different rooms.”

“But,” Dan said, raising an eyebrow, “we could have both our suitcases out as a clue and they’ll just think we fucked up and let a secret slip.”

Phil laughed, making him laugh too. “It’s crazy to think where we could be in five years.”

“Yeah, like look where we were five years ago. You were in uni and had no idea who I was.” Dan replied, really putting things into perspective.

“In five years time who knows, we could be married in a house with a dog.” Phil smiled.

Dan smiled too for a moment, “career-wise though.” he changed the topic, “I want to do something big, something no other Youtubers will be doing.”

“Like what?” Phil asked.

“Let’s do a meet and greet tour or something, write a book, make a short film. Just, let’s do something big together and leave a mark in history as Dan and Phil,” he said softly, still holding Phil’s hand, running his thumb on the soft skin. “As a duo.”

“I like the sounds of that.” Phil agreed with a big smile on his face.

“So it’s a plan,” Dan said, staring into Phil’s beautiful blue eyes.

They had a future together, a loosely made plan of ideas on where to take it and a whole lot of love and friendship to get them there. “I’m going to go shower the day off me, will you handle dinner?” he asked.

“Yeah, I might order in a pizza if that’s okay?” he asked.

“I’d love that.” he smiled, leaving the room with the sheet of paper still on the table.

Dan and Phil’s 5 Year Plan  
\- open up  
\- slowly “come out”  
\- doing something big (tour/movie?)  
\- getting engaged  
\- Japan  
\- getting a dog and a house  
\- slow down

 

He felt really good, a feeling of excitement and promise was taking over the dread and regret that had been bringing him down for so long before. He loved Phil so much, and he knew they were okay for sure this time. That there wasn’t much that could break them apart. They were devoted and dedicated to one another. He felt ready.

He turned back into the room, “can we have sex tonight?” he spat out.

“You’re ready too?” Phil said with a smile.

“So ready.”

 

Dan went a little overboard; he shaved and put on cologne, he let his hair air dry the way Phil liked it, nice and curly. He lit candles in Phil’s room, turned on just one of the lamps, and put on the good soft sheets that they loved but they didn’t match the classic amazingphil room. It was weird filming in such an intimate place, but they were used to it now.

He didn’t know what to wear. He had no idea. He felt like a teenage girl in an American tv show panicking over her first time, only Dan had slept with Phil more times than he could count. He was nervous because of the time that had passed, he wondered too much about if he’d still be good for Phil but tried his hardest to push the thoughts out.

Phil was in the bathroom still, leaving Dan alone with his own thoughts.

“Fuck it,” he mumbled to himself, getting naked and lying under the sheets. He was going to play on his phone and wait, settling in he took a deep breath. Angry birds were the best option for his stress, shooting things with other things for some reason calmed him down.

Phil stood in the doorway, coughing a bit and startling Dan to look at him. He was also naked, only wrapped in a towel. He had his hair pushed back as Dan liked it and he looked beyond sexy. “I didn’t know if I should put my clothes back on,” he admitted.

Dan put his phone down and whipped the blanket off, “I didn’t either.” he said, exposing himself. All his confidence coming back with Phil in the room. It’s like a switch was flicked on, one labelled ‘he loves you, you’re fine.’

Phil dropped his towel, he was hard already and Dan sighed looking at it. Dan scooted more to the middle of the bed and patted his stomach, “come here.”

Phil smiled. Crossing the room and climbing into bed, pressing his lower half onto Dan while holding himself up with his hands on either side of Dan’s head. Dan ran his hands ever so lightly over Phil’s ass and up to his lover back, resting them on his hips finally.

“I love you,” he said softly up at Phil.

Phil kissed him quickly. “I love you, too.”

“Are you nervous?” Dan asked. He knew he was.

Phil swallowed, Dan watched his Adam’s apple bob, “just a little.” he admitted.

“Same.”

Phil kissed him again, deeper this time. Breathing him in deeply and wrapping his arms under Dan, pressing more of his weight into him. He pulled back enough just to lean in and pepper kisses to Dan’s mouth, and his cheek, down the side of Dan’s jaw and down his neck. Dan closed his eyes and let himself get taken by Phil.

He remembered the first time they did this, so vividly. How absolutely anxious he was that it wouldn’t be good, that he’d fuck something up of Phil wouldn’t like it. He was afraid he’d be too tight and Phil wouldn’t want to bottom if he got scared. But the thing he remembers the most is all the fears fading as Phil kissed him. The wonderful euphoric feeling of Phil’s soft, plump lips travelling across his body.

Back then he laid there in shock that he was about to be fucked by the amazingphil, for a split second he forgot that he was Phil. He forgot that Phil wasn’t some big personality that he was lusting over anymore, he forgot how to breathe and take in the moment. He forgot everything till Phil whispered, “I’m in love with you Dan.” into his ear. “I can’t do this without telling you I love you and I’m in this for the long haul.”

Dan remembers crying the first time, not in pain, not in sadness. But tears due to pure requited love that he’d never felt before.

Now, however, Phil still started with an ‘I love you.’ and Dan didn’t feel like crying because it was new, he felt like crying because he missed it. Because he felt like he ruined it all those months ago but a part of him knew he didn’t at the same time. They were growing together, learning and teaching together. There was always a road bump on a journey, there was always going to be roadblocks and u-turns and full stops. But, they were dedicated to getting to the destination.

That destination being Forever.

Sometimes he wished that it had been easier, that they could have pushed the fight off their backs and moved on instead of taking this detour. But then he remembers the growth that it brought. The newfound self-love, trust, and honesty. The open conversations that were more open than they ever were in the past, and that's saying a lot. They worked as a team, not so much as individuals who were in love, but a duo in love. They moved in sync.

Phil kissed all the way down his chest, stopping ad Dan’s belly button, right above where his, now hard, dick was rested. “Can I?” he asked.

“‘Course.” Dan mumbled. Taken back by his beauty and the moment.

He lifted himself up to rest on his forearms and watch Phil as he kissed around his groin. Dan prepared himself for the immense pleasure that came from a hot and wet mouth on him. He couldn’t believe he was in this moment again, it had been months since the last time Phil blew him.

He licked a stripe up the vein and flicked his tongue at the slit. He was too good and he knew it. He took the head in his mouth and sucked on it and Dan’s instinct was to open his mouth and let out a small whine, it still felt as good as the first time.

While everyone that knew of Dan and Phil’s history would think that they fucked the day they met, based on the jokes they publicly made and the inside jokes and innuendos they posted before they ever met in person. They were all wrong. Sure, they made out and touched each other and had fun because they were alone and learning and they could. But they didn’t have sex for the first time till Dan visited in December after he’d visited Phil over 4 times.

Because they were a couple who took it slow. They flirted, they messed around a bit, they started dating in November and waited a month to sleep together the first time. And if he wasn’t afraid to say that he loved Phil, he would have been the one to say it first, and he would have said it after 2 weeks. He loved their story and the little things only they knew about each other.

“Phil.” he moaned, coming back to reality with Phil bobbing on his cock. “My turn?” he asked softly.

Phil pulled off and kissed back up his body before sitting in his lap. “If you suck me off I might not last.” he joked. He wrapped his arms around Dan’s neck and just looked in his eyes.

Dan smiled, “well, I want just a little taste so lie back and enjoy.”

It was so easy with Phil. Maybe it was because Phil was the only one he’d ever been with this intimately. He and Erin barely had sex, all the guys he blew in high school never talked to him again after, so maybe what made sex with Phil easy was because he had nothing to compare it to. There was no one better or worse, there was just Phil. And his soft skin and his wonderful lips and that beautiful cock of his.

Phil lied down with his head on his pillow, Dan shimmying under the blankets and making his way between Phil’s legs. He had a thing for being so hot under the sheets while he sucked Phil off. He liked the feeling of being barely able to breathe after a while, the heat and the restricted air helping him feel calm and relaxed so he could take Phil deeper.

He got lost in his thoughts once again while he took Phil in his mouth like it was all muscle memory. Holding his hip with one hand, gripping the base with the other. He took him down to his throat each time, pulling back up with his tongue flat against the underside, swirling around the head every so often. He bobbed, taking Phil deeper and deeper till he almost choked each time.

“Okay, too far,” Phil said, breathily.

Dan pulled off with a pop. He marvelled over Phil’s dick as he let go of it, letting it flop back against his stomach, glistening with Dan’s spit as Phil threw the covers back off. Dan kissed Phil’s hip bone, a cute little freckle on his tummy that he loved because it was shaped like a D. he joked that it was a soulmate tattoo back before he ever even believed in soulmates.

He kissed all the way back up his chest, running his nose through his chest hair. He made a split second decision to dip back down and lick over Phil’s nipple to hear the most beautiful moan leave Phil’s lips. “Fuck, Dan.”

Dan sat on him this time. “What are you gonna do about that? Fuck me?” he said, cheeky as ever. Bringing out the playful side to forget that this was a reunion of sorts.

In his mind, if he played it up, then he’d forget that this was like a second first time. In the 9 months that they were not together, they changed and grew so much that sex now felt like they were sleeping with someone they had only just met. They were strangers but their bodies still reconnected like the last two pieces of a puzzle.

“Lubes still on your side.” Phil reminded him.

Dan had to get off him to reach into the drawer, grabbing it and a condom. “These are still good right?”

“You want to use one?”

Dan nodded, “I want to sit here after and hold you like a sap instead of spending 20 minutes getting cum out of my ass.”

Phil laughed, leaning into him and burying his face in Dan’s neck to kiss him. His giggling made Dan laugh a bit, “shut up.” he joked. But he didn’t want him to, they were having fun and forgetting everything but each other.

Phil pulled back, getting between Dan’s legs and dragging him to the centre of the bed for more room. Dan just looked at him and smiled, he couldn’t stop smiling. He was so unbelievably happy in the moment. He was letting himself enjoy it, he didn’t have any dark thoughts anymore, he didn’t hate himself or the situation. He felt content with where he was taking himself in life and he was proud of letting himself enjoy the simple things like sex with the love of his life.

Phil ran his hands up and down Dan’s thighs, spreading them in doing so and he looked at dan hungerly. It made Dan’s skin burn, it was so much all at once and yet nothing had started.

“Ready?”

Dan smiled, “god, yes.”

Phil pumped some lube into his hand, spreading it over his fingers, the slick sound filling the room. Dan took a deep breath and got ready for it. It had been a while since he’d had anything in him, he wasn’t comfortable doing it alone when he was sad and he definitely wasn’t doing it with anyone other than phil. But he missed it so much.

Phil presses a finger at the rim, Dan shivered ever so lightly. He pushed in, slowly he took him in further and further till he was 3 knuckles deep. He waited a moment before pumping it in and out. “You feel tighter now than their first time,” Phil commented.

“Cause I haven’t fingered myself in a year Phil.” He said, turning a deeper shade of pink.

Phil kissed the side of his knee and down his thigh. Still pumping and curling his finger. “Two?”

Dan nodded, excitedly. He wanted it so bad, every fear he had when they started had officially left his mind now that he was in the moment. Phil kissing him and touching him was grounding him the way it always did. He lived for moments like this, for the attention from Phil that made him feel as loved as he loved Phil.

It was always somewhat of a shock when he realized Phil loved him. His inner saboteur always making him feel unloveable while he loved others a bit too much, but finally, with Phil he felt safe and loved and okay. He had for the last 4 years they had been together. Even when they were mad at each other phil still loved him more than anyone else ever would.

He scissored his fingers, stretching him enough for a 3rd. Adding it without asking, he knew Dan like he was his favourite book he’d read 100 times. He knew what every sigh and jerk and moan and what they all meant. He knew when dan was ready and when he wasn’t. He knew when Dann was being enthusiastic and when he was lying.

Dan was gone, his head thrown back with his neck extended. Phil got up on his knees again, making his way to hover over Dan so he could kiss his neck and finger him at the same time.

“I’m good.” Dan breathed out as Phil kissed his neck.

Phil ran his teeth along the skin lightly in excitement. He pulled out lightly and Dan felt beyond empty. He forgot how weird it felt for the muscle to be loose and waiting to be filled once more. He forgot what the stretch of a cock felt like and what a good beating to his prostate did to him.

Phil pumped more lube into his hand, spreading it over himself and biting his lip. Dan could only imagine how turned on he was, seeing that dan was just as horny. He spread his legs wider. Reaching for the pillow he used to cuddle at night and shoving it under his lower back.

Phil looked at him softly. “You’re sure you’re ready?”

“Phil,” Dan said just as softly. “Don’t you see how good things are, you heard Brenda today talking about how good we are and how we handle everything. We’re so happy, we’re working through everything together and no matter what we’re going to be together forever.”

Phil smiles and tilted his head a bit, it was the look he gave dan in place of saying ‘I love you.’

“So yes phil, I’m ready.”

Phil pressed himself at Dan’s entrance, pushing in slower than he did their first time. Dan felt him getting deeper and deeper, his mouth opening in a quiet moan as he stretched open more. It felt so fucking good he wanted to cry.

Phil bottomed out, he leaned forward and rested his hands on either side of Dan’s shoulders, holding himself above him. Dan wrapped his arms and legs around him holding him there. “I love you,” Phil whispered.

A tear sneaked its way down the side of Dan’s face. Phil wiped it off with his thumb. “I love you,” Dan said back.

“Can I?” Phil asked, wanting to move so desperately.

“Please.”

Phil pulled out slightly and rocked back in. Again and again. Dan pushed back down into each thrust, angling his body differently till phil rubbed against his prostate making him release a high pitched “ah!”

They stayed there, lightly making love with each other for what felt like forever. It was rare for them to do this, for it to be slow with no purpose other than to feel each other. Phil kissed him, again and again. Hungry kisses, hot breath, wandering hands. Dan’s body was on fire but it was okay because Phil was still so cool to the touch.

Dan moved a hand from Phil’s back to his own cock, the pool of precum on his stomach telling him just how badly he needed to touch himself. The hot butterflies in his stomach had spread through his body, he was beyond close.

“Phil.” He moaned.

“I know,” Phil replied back into Dan’s mouth. “I’m close.”

Phil went a bit faster, fucking into him with purpose now. Dan moaned with each touch of his prostate. Being as loud as he wanted because he didn’t give a single fuck today. His orgasm built and built while Phil kept going, he jerked himself off in time with Phil’s thrusts.

He was teetering on the edge of an orgasm. The pleasure and the situation too intense for him that he cried more, not willingly or with any sad connotations. Rather his body was so full of emotion it needed a release. He came with a shout, catching it mostly in his hand.

Phil came right after, kissing Dan with so much passion his lips hurt. He fucked them both through their orgasms, breathing heavily together as they came down, Phil pulled out and Dan dropped his legs. Phil dropped down beside him with force, almost bouncing on the mattress.

He rolled onto his back to take off the condom and tie it, throwing it off to the corner of the room for later. Dan reached over to grab the cum towel he pre-placed on the night table to wipe himself down before he rolled over onto Phil. He kissed Phil’s neck and shoulder.

“I love you.” They said at the same time making them laugh.

They say in silence for a bit, the candles were still going strong, the light of them dancing around the room in a yellow glow that made Dan feel more content.

“I forgot how weird sex made my insides feel,” Dan admitted, feeling truly unsettled.

“I’m sorry,” Phil said, holding him lightly and rubbing his back. “Do you want me to get you some Tylenol or something?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” Dan asked, feeling Phil let go and sneak his way out of the bed.

Still, buck naked, Dan watched his cute but walk out of the room. He couldn’t help but smile, he closed his eyes and pushed his head deeper into the pillow. He was so happy he started to cry, and not just a little tear but full on crying.

“Hey, hey what’s wrong? Do you hurt?” Phil panicked running back in, placing the medicine and a glass of water on the side table. “I should have stretched more I’m so sorry I know it’s been a long time-”

“Phil I’m happy,” he spoke through the tears. “For the first time in a while my brain is my brain and I enjoyed what we did and I love you and I feel okay.”

Phil climbed onto him, kissing him all over his face. “I fucking love you Dan.”

He kept crying, the pure expulsion of all his pent up emotions was almost as good as an orgasm. He felt so free. Good days like this were so rare, and to also have done so much work and have reconnected with Phil in the most intimate way he could, it felt beyond amazing. Phil just kept kissing him till he started to giggle instead of cry.

“So does this make us boyfriends again?” Phil asked.

“I thought it was just a known fact?” Dan replied, a smile creeping its way onto his face.

-

Mid March he had a depressive episode start randomly. Just when he thought he was okay, it happened again. He woke up in Phil’s bed, checking his phone to see it was 5 am on the 4th of March. He quietly got up from the bed and made his way to his own room. Lying down and getting ready for the pain.

He laid there for about a few hours, door open so Phil could see where he went that morning. He flashed a fake smile as Phil pushed his head in the door. “Morning,” he whispered.

“Do you want anything love?” Phil asked.

“Can I have a coffee? I want to be productive ” he said, shoving his legs off the bed and standing. “I’m going to do that booklet Brenda gave me in the turret.”

Phil hugged him, holding him close for a minute. “I love you.”

Dan hugged him tighter, burying his face in Phil’s neck. “I love you too.”

Phil pulled back and kissed his cheek. “I’ll bring it to you, go do your work.”

And off he went, sitting in the little room they called the turret. The booklet for dealing with distress was on his desk beside their computer. Dealing with Distress was in big letters, “an introduction to healthy coping strategies.” and feel bad, do bad things, “ I am bad” in a diagram on the front.

IMPROVE the moment. “Okay,” he said with a deep breath. He imagined his safe place first as it said. He closed his eyes and sat back in the chair, he was in Phil’s old bedroom in his first flat. No side table, they were cuddled up, the sun setting through the tiny window making the room a beautiful orange. It was quiet, the only noise was Phil’s light snoring. He always fell asleep while they were cuddling which was good because Dan liked to watch him sleep. He liked to look at him and all his beauty and his flaws and take them all is, remember them forever.

He could see all Phil’s pours and freckles, his facial hair coming back, the breath leaving his mouth was hot on Dan’s face and he leaned in to kiss him lightly on his open mouth. Not waking him at all, he was such a deep sleeper.

Dan opened his eyes, smiling wide. He felt a bit better in his happy place. Finding Meaning in the situation was easy. He was depressed because of a chemical imbalance in his brain that he had no control over. He was going to be fine at one point that day with this work, but till then he was going to feel a bit shitty because of his brain.

Phil came in with his coffee when he reached Prayer, he didn’t meditate and he didn’t have a religion. So he mixed it with relaxation. “Want to watch Buffy together?” he asked.

“Always,” Phil replied with a smile, taking Dan’s hand and leading him down the stairs.

They sat side by side drinking their coffees and eating some cereal. After 2 episodes the feelings crept back in, the dark and cloudiness impairing the fun he was supposed to be having watching a show with his best friend.

“What’s wrong?” Phil asked.

“I need to restart my improvement steps,” he said taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he settled back into the couch.

“What are they?” Phil whispered.

“Improve the moment, step one is to imagine my safe space,” he whispered back, still leaning back into the couch.

“Okay,” Phil said, and Dan felt him leaning back into the couch too.

He opened his eyes and looked at Phil who was looking at him softly. “Your first apartment is my safe place.”

“Yeah?” Phil smiled.

He nodded, “you remember how nice the sunset was in there? How we’d cuddle at sunset and it would be a lovely orange in there?”

Phil smiled, scrunching his nose a bit. “I love you,” he whispered. A little teary eyed.

Dan leaned into his shoulder. “I have a really hard time in my head, but outside of my head, you make it really easy to be happy. Thank you.”

Phil held him, “I love you inside and outside of your head. Remember that. On the days you can’t love yourself I’ll love you twice as much and on days you can't take care of yourself, I’ll do it. I’m in this for the long run, always remember that.”

“It’s a lot harder than that. Cause I sometimes don't want your help. I always appreciate it but I’m selfish and I want to do things myself and be good for myself and not you.”

“Okay,” he said and Dan heard him audibly swallow.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don't be, you know how much I love to take initiative with people who I love,” his voice was low and honest. “I want to step in and make it all go away and I know I can't and it kills me sometimes.”

“I know.”

“But,” he said with emphasis, “I’m understanding that it’ll be a constant and that you’re working on it and one day it might be more manageable. And we’re going to work with it. We’re going to have a good career and a good relationship and one day we’ll be married with a dog-”

“And kids.” Dan cut in. “I want to be better when we have kids.”

“You don’t have to be better when we have kids. I’m more than happy teaching them that dad has bad days and we need to be quieter and when he feels better he’ll be out with us and we get pizza for dinner.” Phil explained, he was now running his fingers up and down Dan’s arm while he cuddled more into Phil.

“That would be nice.”

“Little Phoenix and River will love you and respect you just like I do, and they’ll be the nicest most understanding kids in the world with you as their dad.” Phil continued and Dan couldn’t help but smile. They joked about kid names once but they loved those so much they stuck.

“You’re going to be a great papa too,” Dan replied.

They were quiet after that, another episode ran through as background noise when they cuddled. “Maybe just cuddling you is my happy place.”

“I know it’s mine.”

-

The plane ride to Florida for Playlist was too long, and they were too long and the seats were small. Dan spent most of it reading the newest John Green book and crying so hard that an air hostess had to ask if he was alright. To which he was not. They always got off the plane sore and wishing they never left. Being recognized in the airport and taking uncomfortable selfies looking tired as fuck, and again the same thing in the hotel lobby.

They crashed in their bed once they reached their room, all their luggage and neck pillows and backpacks on the second bed. They woke up completely lost as to where they were, limps all tangled together, cold in the air-conditioned room and completely disoriented. They had 4 texts each form Cat and Louise asking when they were getting in, they just looked at each other and sighed.

“Do we tell them tomorrow and just get a pizza and watch a movie?” Phil asked.

“This is why I love you.”

And that’s what they did, they watched rented movies courtesy for Playlist, who paid for the room. They ordered up their pizza and a bottle of wine and they just relaxed together, the way they would at home. They fell asleep at 1 am with alarms set for 9 the next morning.

The first day for them was always mainstage and panels. They partied that night till 3 in the morning and wondered why Dan’s voice was gone when they woke up for the meet and greets. Meet and greets were the parts that they loved the most, meeting fans and realizing they actually did have an impact on lives and a little impact on the world eased the existentialism that Dan always tried to fight on his own.

The meet and greet flew by, 6 hours on their feet and around 300 hugs later they were back in their room, waiting on Cat. The overly cheery and very flirty American they had come to love. There was no doubt that she had a thing for Dan, and there was even less doubt in their minds that she knew about Phil seeing as she paid less attention to him.

She came over to film and watch the crazy storm that was happening from Dan and Phil’s massive front facing window, a perfect view of the grounds and some of Florida behind it. The crazy lightning and jaw-dropping wind had all of them in awe as they stared out the window. They watched a woman be taken out in an ambulance and a stop sign go flying. It was more interesting than anything they saw that day.

They had two days left, days which they spent with Cat once again. She helped them pack and try out weird American sweets and then took them on a tour of Sea World. Dan didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay in the hotel that day and spend the day with Phil, knowing that he had a plane to catch at 11 pm and he wouldn’t be seeing Phil for almost 2 weeks.

But he sucked it up and watched whales be mistreated and eat terrible cafeteria style food and listened to Cat ramble about things trying to impress him. He finally had enough and asked if they could leave early, Cat left in one taxi and then they left in another going to the Lester Family Florida home that Dan had always wanted to visit.

“Can’t you stay?” Phil whined as they laid naked in an unfamiliar bed in an empty house.

Dan ran his fingers through the hair on Phil’s chest, contently breathing against the nape of his neck and wishing he didn’t have to go anywhere either. “I have to go or Obama will never let me in again.”

“Maybe we can tweet him and let you stay.”

Dan laughed, “It doesn’t work like that Phil.”

He couldn’t physically hear the frown on Phil’s face, “I know.”

“You’ll be back before you know it. And we can do this again and however many times you want to do it, I’ll make you Thi green curry and we can watch the new Game of Thrones, it’ll be lovely.” Dan went on, reassuring him the way Phil always did for him.

“I’m holding you to that Howell.” Phil jokingly threatened.

“Shut up and just hold me now.”

-

Being without Phil in their home always made him sad, and being sad made him productive. He pushed himself into his videos to forget that Phil wasn’t there. The thing was, he would always help Phil film, he still loved watching him talk and edit and shooting skits. He loved to proof watch and hype up a Phil video, he was still one of his biggest fans. But he couldn’t have Phil anywhere near him when he filmed, he was so scared of it being bad for the audience, let alone letting down his inspiration.

Since hitting a million he’d promised a house tour. So he spent the morning cleaning the house to its most prime and polished version. He vacuumed and dusted, he hid all the things he wouldn’t want to be seen, he closed his and Phil’s bedroom door. The house was cleaner now than it was when they started renting it.

It took him 3 hours to film it, 6 hours to edit it. And he hated all of it. The lighting was off while the sun was setting outside, making the white balance off to a weird yellow, and he was awkward. He hated it.

He did a live show that night, explaining why he didn’t have a new video that day yet, and why Phil wasn’t there for them to bug. People in the chat were encouraging, with comments like “don’t post till you’re ready!” and “if your heart isn’t fully in it don't post it!” which made him feel a bit better. Overall, it was a good show, that left him feeling more positive with his audience.

The last question made him laugh as soon as he ended the chat. Someone seriously asked if he and Phil were stopping making videos together. As if that would ever fucking happen. It was funny the type of shit they made up when they hadn’t posted together in a while, he just shook his head and texted Phil from his laptop.

Dan: let me know when we can skype i miss you

Phil: I can in like 20, mum and everyone is going swimming at the beach and I don't feel like being seen

Dan: makes sense, tell them all i miss them

Phil: I wish you stayed.

Dan: one day i will and it won't look weird  
Dan: can’t wait for that day.

Phil: me too.


End file.
